Harry the Hufflepuff 2
by BajaB
Summary: Lazy!Harry is back, and not doing very much at all...
1. Return to Privet Drive

_Yes, it's a sequel. Please read Harry the Hufflepuff first. Thanks to the guys at AFC yet again for helping this story happen._

* * *

For the first time in months, a loud argument broke out at number four, Privet Drive.

The neighbourhood gossips, always ready to discuss even the most trivial of happenings, had become so used to not hearing Petunia Dursley's hideous early morning screeching and regular daytime outbursts, that the sudden noise caught them all by surprise.

It did of course involved Petunia's rogue nephew, Harry Potter, who's much anticipated and speculated return from boarding school provided a brief flurry of gossip a few weeks earlier, but the lack of any noticeable change in the peace and quiet when he finally did arrive lulled them into almost forgetting about him.

Almost.

The most unusual thing about this half-expected argument was not that it was directed at Harry, but that it was coming from him.

"You can't stop me doing my homework," yelled Harry, uncharacteristically expressing his anger loudly. "I'll get into trouble when I get back."

"You'll do exactly what I tell you to, you ungrateful brat," shouted Vernon, the wobbling of his triple chins making him resemble an over-excited walrus eating a particularly recalcitrant penguin. "Now get outside and finish the gardening and then I want you inside your room before I get back with the Masons."

"Fine," said Harry, snatching up a half a dozen slices of fresh bread and the whole lump of cheese he was sure Petunia planned to only give him a small slice of. "I'll sit up there being bored and pretending I don't exist, but not doing my homework, which would definitely keep me busy and out of the way."

Then he stomped outside, muttering noisily while trying very hard to keep the smile that threatened to give him away under wraps.

"And make sure you keep that ruddy bird quiet too!" snapped Vernon at Harry's retreating back.

Harry had absolutely no intention of doing any homework over the holidays, but it was nice to have an excuse. Should any of the professors ask, he could honesty answer that he had been forbidden to by his ignorant Muggle uncle who also locked his trunk away under the stairs

Chewing on a bit of the cheese as he walked to the most secluded corner of the garden, Harry contemplated how best to give the illusion of working. The weeds Vernon wanted gone were already on their way out, courtesy of a spray bottle of potent weed killer secretly bought out of his own money.

Petunia steadfastly refused to allow any sort of chemical or poison to go near her precious garden, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and by the time she bothered to check, probably once Harry was back at school, the weeds would all be gone, reabsorbed into the beds.

Likewise, he booked a local garden service to do the old 'fifteen minute trim' of the hedges and run a mower over the lawn every couple of weeks while Vernon was at work and Petunia was on one of her regular shopping trips to London with Dudley-the-miniature-man-mountain.

None of the Dursleys noticed. What they did see was Harry dragging the gardening tools out of the shed each morning as Vernon was leaving for work, and him putting them away each night before he came inside, usually covered in dirt and looking like he had been working hard all day.

Thanks to some subtle, meant-to-be-overheard muttering and complaining by Harry, Petunia thought Vernon was responsible for giving Harry a long list of chores, and Vernon thought it was Petunia assigning the chores.

Dudley didn't think anything at all, as far as Harry knew.

Lying down on the lawn in the last of the afternoon sun, Harry munched on his pilfered bread and cheese and wondered why, when he was having the best summer break of his life, he was not feeling happy. Well he did know, but he had avoided thinking about it too deeply, until now.

The momentary thrill of outwitting the Dursleys was not a good trade for the ability to do magic - Harry was bored.

For a year, he had a wonderful time at Hogwarts learning how to do the most incredible things. He spent an amazing time discovering magic, only to return to the mundane and boring existence at number four Privet drive. To say he was missing school a bit, despite the ridiculous amount of extra work required while there and the fact he could not use it the way he wanted until he turned seventeen, was like saying Dudley not getting thirds left blubber-boy "a bit upset".

Sure, Harry did manage to smuggled a few hastily enchanted bits and pieces into the house, mainly thanks to some very deep magical pockets on his pants, but a fork that automatically beat eggs, and a semi-intelligent cleaning sponge that never got dirty or left marks, was not enough to keep him happy, not when magic had so much more to offer.

Staring at the neatly trimmed bushes, Harry again contemplated the idiocy of the rules that said underage wizards could not perform magic outside of school, when he suddenly realised that the hedge was staring back at him.

Two slightly familiar looking, tennis ball sized eyes were staring out of the bushes, and they did not appear to be attached to a head of any kind, or to be peeking through a hole in the greenery.

Harry blinked.

The eyes blinked.

Harry blinked twice.

The eyes blinked back.

This went on for quite a while.

After a year in a magical castle with headless ghosts routinely floating through the walls, a blinking bush did not freak him out as much as it might have done a year or two before. Of course his normal tendency of rarely over-reacting to anything, since that wasted a lot of energy and took real effort, meant he would probably not have gone running off at top speed screaming like a little girl confronted by a peeping-tom anyway, but his casual acceptance of a plant sprouting eyes surprised even him.

Harry ate the last of his cheese and bread, and then blinked again.

So did the eyes.

Finally, Harry realised he was going to have to do something besides play tennis-blink, but then Dudley came to his 'rescue'.

That was even odder than the hedge-eyes really.

"What are you looking at?" asked Harry's morbidly obese cousin, although the mouthful of pre-dinner ice-cream actually made it sound more like "Wot arf oo ook'n at?"

Startled by Dudley's unexpected appearance, Harry glanced away from the eyes and towards Dudley. When he quickly looked back, the eyes were gone, of course.

"I am trying to work out what best to shape this hedge into," said Harry. "I was thinking a swan, but it won't really fit in with the rest of the garden motif."

'Swn? If's a 'ush," slurred Dudley, which Harry translated into "Swan? But it's a bush".

Harry sighed. He was no mental giant, but Dudley made most midgets look positively gargantuan.

"Are you lost again, or did you have a point in interrupting my work?" asked Harry, making sure to make his hands thoroughly blackened with dirt. "You know your mum gets upset if you interfere with my chores."

She didn't ever get upset at Dudley, but he was too thick to separate 'getting upset' and 'getting upset at Harry'.

"I know what today is," said Dudley, actually taking the time to swallow before speaking.

"Tuesday?" asked Harry.

Truth be told, Harry didn't care enough to know it himself. One day was pretty much like the next really, and calendars and schedules were for nutty people who took themselves way too seriously.

"It's your birthday," said Dudley, a smug grin on his ice-cream plastered face.

Harry automatically opened his mouth to reply, and stopped. Was it? It was! Damn!

"Holy crap, Dudders," cried Harry, jumping to his feet and grabbing Dudley's hand to shake it vigorously. "You remembered my birthday! What a great cousin. You are the best, Big-D. I've got to go celebrate! Thanks again. Bye."

Harry walked off leaving a stunned and gaping Dudley behind him. It was always fun to mess with his cousin's head. It would probably take a few minutes, but Harry knew Dudley wouldn't think to wipe his hands before he swapped which one was holding the melting ice-cream and consequently transferred a lot of black soil to it.

Lard-head probably wouldn't even notice that until his brain registered the crunchy bits in the sweet were a bit grittier than usual, not that that would stop him.

It was petty, but far too easy a trick to miss playing.

After washing himself off at the outside tap, Harry snuck inside, deftly avoiding Petunia, who was busy preparing for the big dinner later that night with some potential clients of Vernon's or something. He silently made his way up to his room, looking forward to a surprise birthday-nap.

The only problem was there was already somebody on his bed.

"Not another one of you," sighed Harry, stepping into the room and letting the door close automatically behind him. "I thought I told you all I can't help you while I am stuck here. I don't have the room and my guardians hate anything to do with Magic."

Seeing Harry, the House-elf stood up suddenly.

"Harry Potter-" it started to say, then stopped abruptly, its oddly familiar eyes going so wide and bulging so much Harry was half expecting them to pop out on stalks.

"What?" asked Harry, nervously looking over his shoulder to see what the elf might be looking at.

"Harry Potter is doing magic outside of Hogwarts!" said the elf pointing at the door behind Harry.

"Eh?" asked Harry, honestly confused.

"The door, sir. Yous is closing it by magic!" it said, thrusting its gnarled finger for emphasis. "Harry Potter is truly a great wizard, to get around the Ministry Trace."

"What? No, it's an automatic closer I scavenged off an old screen door and fitted here so I don't have to keep closing it myself," said Harry.

The elf looked even more impressed, although confused.

"Look, it's a Muggle thing, okay?" said Harry. "Now I told the others I can't help them and the same goes for you. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to find other work to do until I get back to Hogwarts. Besides I'm still stuck with crates of those damn socks and nobody has been able to explain what 'market saturation' means or why I can't sell any more of them to the shops in Diagon Alley. The last thing I need is to have more made."

"Dobby is not being here to work," said the elf apparently named Dobby.

"Eh?" said Harry, again eloquently expressing himself.

"Dobby is here to warn Harry Potter," said the elf. "Harry Potter must not go back to Hoggywarts."

"Why not?" asked Harry. "The elves aren't angry at me are they? I mean I was trying to help them, not just use them like what's-her-name accused me of doing. Well, okay, I was using them a bit, but it wasn't like I was trying to hurt them or anything-"

"No, sirs," interrupted the elf. "Dobby is not talking about elves at Hogwarts, who even now sneak around Harry Potter's house doing jobs when he is not looking. Dobby will be punishing himself most severely, but he is needing to warn Harry about a wicked plot he has know of for months-"

"Elves? Here?" asked Harry. "Where?"

He looked around the room, trying to catch any signs of a House elf.

"Yes, sirs. Elves being doing things like trimming trees and lawn-"

"I thought that service was doing too good a job for the tiny amount I've been paying them," said Harry thoughtfully.

"- and cleaning Harry Potter's room -"

"So my enchanted brush isn't working that well?" asked Harry catching a glimpse of the small brush as it guiltily scurried under the bed. "Bugger. I thought I was on a real winner with that. I've even been patting it for doing such great work."

"- and keeping nasty fat boy from putting naughty sticky things in Harry Potter's unmentionables while they are on the clothes line."

"What? That bastard. And here I've been leaving him alone all summer. Well, time for some 'unnaturalness' to visit Dudders I think," mumbled Harry.

"- and misleading evil dark wizards who is combing the neighbourhood looking for Harry Potter sir –"

"Hang on, just how long have you been watching me?" asked Harry starting to get angry.

The elf shuffled nervously on his feet for a moment before continuing.

"Long enough to know Harry Potter is a too important to be lost to wicked wizard plot at Hogwarts," it said excitedly, getting back into the vigour of things. "Harry potter must not be going to Hoggywarts!"

In the sudden silence, Harry heard the front door of Privet Drive close and several muffled voices exchanging greetings. Presumably it was Vernon and his guests.

"So is this plot aimed at me or just the school in general? I mean, are my friends going to be in danger?"

"Harry Potter is a great wizard to worry about his friends – friends who don't write to Harry Potter." asked the elf.

"Write? Who writes while they are on holidays? It's not like I wasn't going to see them soon enough anyway."

"Harry Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby," said the elf, taking a large pile of letters out from under the filthy pillowcase that Harry realised was the small creature's clothes.

Harry really hoped it wore underwear.

"Dobby will give these to Harry Potter if he promises not to go-"

Harry lunged.

Despite his disgust at the thought of where those letters had been sitting, Harry's sudden intense desire to get them overrode his normal easy-going temperament. For some reason he would likely never bother to think deeply about, he was furious.

The elf move quickly, leaping out of Harry's grasp and up onto the bed, but Harry was fast too, and threw himself at the elf again, colliding into him and pinning him against the wall with his shoulder while they fought for possession of the letters.

Growing up with Dudley gave Harry a lot of experience in grappling like this. Combined with his slight weight advantage, Dobby didn't really stand a chance at escaping, and resorted to trying to bite Harry's ear off while wrapping his legs around Harry's waist, once his punches and blows proved ineffective. Shoving off the wall, they tumbled onto the bed.

Unfortunately neither realised how much racket they were making until Harry's door flew open and Vernon burst in, red faced and ready to tear Harry a new one.

The sight of his freak nephew cavorting on top of a bed with a half naked demonic looking thing wrapped around him completely stunned Vernon, leaving him absolutely speechless.

Harry and Dobby froze, both turning to look at the intruder.

"Do you mind?" Harry asked Vernon in a perfectly mild voice. "I'm a bit busy right now."

#

"Well that worked out well," said Harry, holding a cloth to the side of his head. "You know you've probably gotten me thrown out of the only place outside of school I have to stay, and I reckon you might have cracked a tooth."

"Dobby is saying sorry, Mr Harry Potter sir," said the elf, spitting out another mouthful of blood into a hanky, "but-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," said Harry, dabbing at his various wounds with the cloth. "If I don't go, is it still going to happen?"

Dobby pulled on his long ears in obviously conflict.

"I'll take that as a yes. Are you going to try and stop it even if I don't go then, because I really don't like the idea of leaving my friends to whatever it is that is happening?"

Dobby's ridiculously large eyes grew even wider.

"Harry Potter sir is indeed a great wizard to care for others. Dobby will try, Harry Potter sir, but his first priority is to keep Harry Potter from harm!"

"So if I say I won't go, will you nick off and stop pinching my letters and stuff then, but keep trying to stop whatever it is?"

"Yes sirs," said the elf, nodding vigorously.

"Right, I guess I won't be going back to old Hoggywarts then," said Harry with badly faked sincerity. "Okay?"

The elf gave an excited squeal and leapt off the bed before disappearing.

Harry laughed sourly and shook his head, tenderly poking the sore spots in his cheek with his tongue while thinking some very uncharitable thoughts about lunatics in the Wizarding world.

"What a birthday, eh?"

On the floor where he toppled in a faint, the unconscious Vernon left out a moan.

#

Several days later, Aliens attempted to kidnap Dudley.

At least that was the best explanation anybody could come up with. Old cars simply did not fly around Surrey late at night, red-headed clones did not tie ropes around the bars of Dudder's bedroom window to yank them out of the wall, and car and clones definitely did not suddenly disappear when Dudley overcame his terror to start screaming like a teenage girl in a horror movie.

Vernon predicably tried to blame Harry, but he had pretty much slept through the whole abduction attempt and ensuring ruckus.

Calmly pointing out that Vernon should probably have put the bars and locks on his room to keep him in rather than on Duddley's (to keep Harry out), ended up getting him a 40 minute incoherent rant and a ban from setting foot inside the house or the yard during the day for the rest of the holidays.

Which was fine by Harry, since he was running out of things to pretend to be busy doing anyway.

He spent a few pleasant days tending Mrs. Figg's cats, and another few trying to find the perfect snoozing tree in the neighbourhood, but eventually he got to the point where he had nothing better to do than read the various letters Dobby had kept from him.

Most of them were from Hermione and were so full of enthusiasm they made Harry tired just reading them. Several were from various students in his house, Hufflepuff, and one was from the school listing all of the supplies he was going to need to pick up before returning.

Putting aside his annoyance at the need to go to London, Harry realised a visit to Diagon Alley was the closest he was going to get to the magic he loved before getting back to school.

The choice between expending the energy to somehow convince Vernon to take him, or making the effort to undertake the journey on his own was a close one, but eventually Harry decided to fall back on one of the many new things he had discovered attending Hogwarts:

Friends.

#

"Come on girl, time to earn your keep," said Harry lifting the top of the cage off his sleeping owl.

Why Vernon thought putting a padlock on the door of the cage was going to stop him from letting his owl out eluded Harry. Unscrewing the bottom of the cage and setting her free every night was a hell of a lot easier than bringing her food, especially since the cage was designed that way for easier cleaning.

"Got a letter for you to take to Sue," said Harry, strapping the rolled up note to the owl's leg with a piece of Velcro. "No hurry or anything."

Some might have considered it a bit rude to only reply when he wanted to ask something, but Harry didn't. Besides, he had written at least six extra sentences specifically in response to her letters that Dobby had tried holding to ransom.

Sue's reply, arriving the next day, contained five pages of exhausting-to-read writing, and a short description of something called the Knight Bus and how to summon it.

Harry sighed to himself, regretting encouraging the girl with his extra lines. Now she probably thought he was going to be a pen pal or something.

"Lucky I didn't write to Hermione."

#

"Beds, on a bus," said Harry in wonderment as he handed over the full fare to Stunfish-zits-or-whatever-his-name-was the conductor. "Brilliant."

"Oh. Sorry, mate. Forgot to switch over to day-mode," Stunfish said.

He pulled a chain dangling from the roof and the beds, candles, and curtains disappeared - dropping Harry painfully to the floor. Stunfish then pulled an over-sized, ridiculous looking lever, and wooden chairs appeared. Excessively cheery yet off-key music began blaring from somewhere near the roof.

"Put them back," growled Harry, standing up. "Put them back now!"

"Er, I can't - rules, you know?"

"No," cried Harry falling to his knees and banging his hands dramatically on one of the seats. "Nooooooooooooo!"

Stan backed away, slowly.

#

The alley was as exciting and interesting as ever, with too many fascinating shops for Harry to explore, so he decided to concentrate on getting his school supplies first and then maybe seeing the sights a bit more.

"Do the potion supply lists change much each year?" asked Harry.

"Nope," answered the surly apothecary worker.

"Then give me all seven years now," said Harry. "Saves having to come back again each year."

"Some of it will go off," said Surly.

"Oh. Well, can you put those ones in these jars then?" asked Harry, digging out a box of his charmed jars from his pocket. "They all have stay-fresh and preserving spells on them."

"That 'aught to do it," agreed the man, no longer quite so surly after inspecting the jars. "Good idea that. I should probably stock a few dozen myself, for other people. Could be very useful to have one of those on hand."

"You have no idea," agreed Harry, briefly thinking about pickled Dark Lords.

#

Harry looked in disgust at the pile of books that made up the entire Hogwarts book list.

"There is no way I am reading all of this," he said to nobody in particular.

"You should come back this afternoon," said a passing salesman. "Mr Lockhart himself will be here signing copies. Going to be quite a day."

"Yeah, right," said Harry, still eyeing the huge stack of books and wondering if buying all seven years wasn't such a great idea after all. "Say, you don't have them in something like an audio-book, do you?"

The blank look answered Harry.

"Didn't think so," said Harry thoughtfully. "I wonder what passes for a tape recorder around here anyway?"

#

"Look," he said, verging on running out of patience not for the first time that day. "I live with Muggles, right? I can't have a trunk floating along behind me or running about on hundreds of tiny little legs, got it? All I want is a set of luggage wheels I can attach to the bottom of my trunk so I don't have to carry the damn thing or drag it along the ground. Muggles have been doing it for ages, so surely you magical folk can come up with something at least as good, right?"

The trunk maker and his assistant looked outraged and sceptical, but they didn't again immediately protest, so maybe he was getting somewhere.

"Of course it would be a hell of a lot easier if I could just dump the trunk all together and stick to my deep pockets," explained Harry. "But I need something a bit more solid, since I've been buying a lot more stuff this year and I've hit some sort of limit on how much I can stuff into the expanded spaces I've got."

"Oh, we can make you a trunk that's got practically unlimited space inside of it in several compartments," piped up the assistant, latching onto that idea instead of breaking new ground with Harry's request for wheels. "No problem there."

Harry felt close to crying in frustration.

#

"So all I have to do is touch my wand to the collar of the robes, say _muto pingo_ and the colour name, and it will change, right?" asked Harry.

The teenage saleswitch nodded, obviously bored to tears and not at all impressed by serving the boy-who-lived. She had offhandedly demonstrated a few times already, but Harry wanted to be sure.

"Yeah, that's about it," she said. "Anything else?"

Harry was quite pleased to discover a shop selling clothes a bit more magical than the usual mundane robes. They still didn't have half of the things he thought should have been available, like built-in automatic cleaning and ironing charms, but it was better than nothing.

"How much?" he asked, painfully aware his bag of gold was starting to get a bit on the light side.

A trip back to the Goblins might be in order. He wished they had something along the lines of how he imagined credit cards worked, or even an old-fashioned chequebook, but apparently the magical world didn't trust in currency substitutes.

She told him.

"I don't suppose you can point me to somewhere that might be interested in buying my old robes?" he asked, digging several of the large coins out of his money bag. "Some of them need a bit of fixing, up, but they should be good enough for a second hand store."

"Curiosities and Collectibles at this end of Knocturn Alley is probably your best bet," she said, taking his money and giving back a handful of change. "There are a few other places along the alley, but that's where you'll get the best prices for collectables. Anything else?"

Harry paused, not sure if she was the best person, or if it was even the right place, to ask his next question. Then again, she was here, he was here, and going looking for somewhere else when what he what he wanted was right here in front of him was a bit redundant – and he hated wasting time or effort.

"Er, do you know where I might be able to buy a mannequin like the one you have modelling my sized robes over there, but something a little more, er, life-like?" he asked.

For the first time since Harry set foot in the shop, the saleswitch didn't look bored.

#

The shop at the head of Knockturn Alley turned out to be a bit of a gold mine. They gave him quite a lot more for his old robes than he expected, especially considering the condition of some of them. He ended up making considerably more than he had paid for the new robes.

The only things they wouldn't take were the excess elf-made socks, citing something about over commercialisation and factory goods or something, and Dudley's cast offs, which was fair enough considering they really didn't suit the boy-who-lived image.

Selling his old underwear seemed really weird, but the price they offered was ridiculously huge, even if it did mean he was going to have to stop at a Muggle shop and restock before heading back to school. Then again, many wizards apparently went 'au naturale', so maybe that was an option? Nah, he stood to make too much money next year and he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of being 'open aired' – probably the Muggle in him.

Flush with new cash, Harry amused himself browsing the various shelves of second hand shops. Never having owned much before Hogwarts, and nothing at all new, second hand cast offs were a source of fascination for Harry. The money he had made could buy him a ton of things he couldn't possibly afford to own otherwise, and all that most of it required was a bit of cleaning up and repairing.

He was a bit annoyed at having bought new robes when he probably could have saved a fair bit getting second hand ones, but there was enough interesting knickknacks that had some real potential to keep him from brooding for too long.

"So if you can't fix a broken wand, why sell them at all?" he asked.

"Some people still get a bit of a response out of them," explained the helpful clerk.

Fascinated, Harry bought several of the wands, including one that gave out a spark when he secretly waved it. Maybe Muggle wood glue could do what magic could not.

Several tarnished cauldrons looked like they were made to survive a Neville-level explosion, and one was shiny enough for Slick to use as a mirror while he brewed. Knowing Greasy, Harry wouldn't get away with anything except a bog-standard one though.

A long rack in one store held a series of blades raging from penknife through to bastard sword, sometimes with supposedly authentic bloodstains of famous people and creatures, according to the labels. There was no chance Harry could get away with using a cutlass to chop up his ingredients, but it could be fun to try, if only to see how snarky he could get Greasy to be.

The thing he found the most exciting was the broom.

It was very old, cheap, and had obviously seen better decades, but it sort of flew mostly straight, and it had a lot of potential, since Harry wasn't going to mind as much if it broke while being experimented with, unlike his proper broom.

Struggling to drag his new trunk out of the second hand shop, Harry accidentally bumped into somebody.

"Oops," he said, fighting to stay upright and keep the trunk from spilling all of its contents onto the road. "Sorry about that."

"Potter!"

Surprised, Harry half turned around and nearly lost his hold on the precariously balanced trunk. The lid sprung open as if it was trying to disgorge more of its cargo.

Harry was starting to think the trunk was purposely been difficult, much like its creators.

"Heya, Slick," said Harry, catching sight of Draco Malfoy. "Give us a hand will you?"

Draco stood back, staring at Harry with a mixture of disgust and confusion on his face.

"Draco," said a silky smooth voice that sent shivers of unpleasantness up Harry spine. "Introduce me to your little friend."

Standing behind Draco was his clone. Well, a bigger, older clone. Actually that probably meant Draco was the clone and standing behind him was the original, thought Harry.

"He is no friend of mine," said Draco nastily, then his face paled as he caught a glimpse of something inside Harry's trunk. "Wait, is that a body in your trunk? Is it Weasley?"

His tone was a mixture of awe and excitement.

"Shush," said Harry, finally managing to get control of his misbehaving trunk and slam the lid completely closed, after pushing what looked like a hand back inside. "No need to yell it out, Slick."

It was actually a mannequin from the dress shop, but it would be far too much trouble to explain, and he really didn't feel any need to. Besides, it was fun to mess with gits.

"Draco," said Mr Malfoy, the slight tone of rebuke sending another shiver along Harry's spine and raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

It nearly made Harry laugh to note Draco reacted as if the voice affected him the same way.

"But Father-"

"Enough, Draco," said Mr Malfoy. "I asked for an introduction, not a violation of Mr Potter's privacy."

"That's okay," said Harry with a bit of a nervous giggle. "It's amazing what you can buy in some of these places, isn't it? Anyway, pleased to meet you Mr Malfoy. Draco spent most of last year talking about you."

"Indeed," said Malfoy senior, raising an eyebrow at his son.

Draco had the good sense to look a bit ashamed.

"Okay, well I'd better not hold you up anymore. See you at school, Sli-erm Draco," said Harry, hurrying to drag his trunk away from them. "Nice to meet you, sir."

Before he disappeared around a corner, he looked back, but Draco and Malfoy senior were nowhere in sight.

It didn't take much realise they had headed down into Knockturn alley, and Harry didn't want to think about what they might be doing, or if it might be tied up with the plot the house-elf warned him about.

He really needed to get around to writing that letter to his head of house too.

Maybe tomorrow.

#


	2. Return to Hoggywarts

_Thanks for the reviews, and thanks again to the guys at AFC who's suggestions and fixes make this a much better fic than it would be otherwise. Please don't expect this fic to go for lots more chapters, or for the chapters to be much longer than this. lazy!Harry is hard to write and keeps infecting me with bouts of his lethargy!_

* * *

"Whoohooo," screamed Harry as he sped off down the street on Dudley's mostly repaired racing bike.

The front wheel was still a bit wobbly from when Dudley had crashed into Mrs Figg, but it was a decent job considering the tools he had to work with, and how little effort he had put into it.

"Lookout!" he yelled as he shot past a group of people crossing the street.

It was nowhere near as fast as flying for real, but it was still fun, and sticking the old broom to the top tube of the frame turned out to be a lot easier than he had expected, thanks to a brand new hacksaw and a tub of awesome magical glue. Sure the bristles sticking out from under the seat might look a bit silly, but like most people's opinions of him, that didn't bother Harry much.

The original idea of copying whatever spell Hagrid used on the boat to make the bike propel itself was still a good one, but without being able to cast magic, it was sadly out of reach. Using the broom however, was pretty simple, and a load of fun.

"Incoming!" he called, despite there being nobody anywhere near the sand pit of the park he was aiming for.

There was a funny kind of satisfaction in screaming out warnings - a bell just didn't do it for him. A really loud horn might be better, but yelling would do for now.

Hitting the curb at the edge of the park launched the bike a few feet into the air, the old broom struggling but failing to lift the combined weight of bike and boy, and then Harry crashed into the sand-pit and went flying over the handlebars.

"That was awesome," he laughed, sitting up and spitting out mouthfuls of sand.

It was fun, but he really needed to do something about the brakes before taking it out again. Then again, maybe he should leave it, just in case Dudley decided to reclaim the bike now that Harry had fixed it.

As usual, the easier path had some definite advantages to it, that was for sure.

For a brief second he thought about riding the bike all the way to London, but the moment of madness passed and the idea fell back into its rightful place at the murky bottom of the deep dark ocean of his thoughts.

He should probably get a helmet, if he was going to keep this sort of thing up. There was a second hand Quidditch head guard he had bought that could probably do the job, and he was pretty sure it had some sort of crash guard spell or something on it, but he hadn't yet needed to use it so he couldn't say for certain.

Possibly he could get some spells cast on his Muggle clothes to protect him better, but that sounded like a lot of effort, and he only had a day or two left anyway.

"Incoming!" he screamed again as the bike tore down the street, despite his feet barely working the pedals.

Then again, why bother?

* * *

"Kings Cross station? This early in the morning? You must be mad keen to get back to school," said Stunfish as Harry dropped the required coins into his hand and choosing to forgo the hot chocolate.

"Yeah, that's right," said Harry, climbing into the nearest bed. "But don't hurry on my account. In fact, take the scenic route and drop me off later. Just make sure it's before you switch over to day mode, okay?"

There really was no need to explain his actions. Getting the bed was his reward for getting up so early, since the mattress was, as he expected, a lot softer and more comfortable than Dudley's old squashed flat one back at Privet Drive.

* * *

"Is that an undeveloped Mimic moth?" asked a rather strange looking little blonde girl from the doorway of his cabin on the train. "I thought they stayed in their cocoons until they were ripe."

There was still a good hour before the train left and only a few people were as early as Harry, which was fine since it meant he could take the closest cabin to the entrance and save himself a walk. He hadn't bothered to close the door, since he figured that would just mean people would open it to look inside, despite the fact it had windows. Some people were strange like that.

"A moth? I bloody well hope not," answered Harry. "I paid two galleons for it. I'll be pretty annoyed if it sprouts wings then up and flies away or something."

The girl stepped into his cabin and lent forward, bringing her face ridiculously close to the mannequin's blank face.

"No, they usually have more life-like features," she said after a solid minute of staring unblinkingly at the mannequin with her large, almost bulging eyes.

"I'm working on it," said Harry a bit defensively.

He'd been trying for fifteen minutes to work out how to transfigure a proper nose and had only managed to raise a small bump in approximately the right place. It was getting a bit irritating and was close to giving it up for while despite knowing the spells he needed to use. It was almost at the point where convincing somebody else to do it for him was easier than doing it himself.

"And hair," she added.

"It's coming," said Harry, glancing at Petunia's old mop head he had rescued from the bin.

The black dye hadn't taken well and left it more grey than black, with streaks of darker patches, but at least it now stood up a bit more like his own hair did, thanks to some semi-working charms and the judicious use of scissors.

"The glasses look good," Blondie said. "I like the eyes on them, especially the way they blink."

"Thanks. They came in handy a few times last year, they did," said Harry.

"Of course they'll look better once you put them on your doll's face," she said, rather pointedly.

"Yeah, well, ears are proving even more difficult," said Harry. "My sticking charms aren't much good yet and I don't want to use glue in case I need to move them or something."

"What about tying a bit of string to them and around the back of the head to keep them in place?" she suggested. "Or put some pins through the arms and nail them into the skull?"

Harry thought about it for a moment, and then smiled.

"You know," he said. "I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship."

* * *

By the time the train was ready to leave, Harry was ready for a nap.

Blondie was still playing with the mannequin, trying out various ways to keep the hair and glasses on. She had proven fairly adept at learning some of the simpler charms Harry had researched previously for making the mannequin appear more realistic, and Harry was quiet happy to let her experiment.

A few people stopped in to say hello, mostly his Hufflepuff year mates, but none of them stayed very long after seeing Blondie enthusiastically trying to staple the wig to the dummy's head, or when she insisted on changing it into a different set of robes for reasons Harry didn't even try to understand (just what the hell was a Nargle infestation anyway?).

Blondie's comments regarding the doll not being anatomically correct left Harry red faced with embarrassment, mainly because she voiced them in front of Sue and Han, who both ran off giggling to each other.

At some point she began referring to the mannequin as Larry, although calling it Garry, short for Golem Harry, seemed like a better name to Harry when she first suggested it. He didn't know what Larry was short for, and didn't really want to either.

"Playing with dolls, Potter?"

Harry opened his eyes; he would have glared, but that seemed such a bother, and Slick was hardly worth the effort. Before he could make up his mind whether to answer or not, Blondie, whom Harry learned was named Moongirl or something, interrupted.

"I thought boys called them 'action figures'?" she said in a dreamy sounding voice.

Draco shifted uncomfortably; suddenly aware the strange looking girl was staring unblinkingly at his crotch.

"Maybe your moth is anatomically correct after all, Harry," she added in a puzzled sounding voice while not taking her eyes away from Draco's nether regions. "I was certain all boys had lumps there.

"Those two do," she added, nodding her head towards Draco's bookend mates standing on either side and slightly behind him. "And you do too, but this one is flat like Larry, or me."

Harry stifled a snort, while Draco went wide-eyed. Crab looked confused but Gar actually smiled and raised his head proudly.

"You are a boy, aren't you?" she asked, finally looking up to Draco's bright pink face.

* * *

"Oi, Potter," called a voice loudly enough to wake Harry from his dozing. "You seen our young Ronald anywhere?"

"No," said Harry, opening his eyes to take in the sight of B1 and B2, the Weasley twins. Identical twins that looked even more like clones than Draco and his father. "Hey, did you guys try to kidnap my cousin a few weeks ago?"

The sudden change in their demeanour answered Harry, although their words said differently.

"What us?"

"No, never."

"Why would we do that?"

"No reason at all."

"It's not like we thought you were being held prisoner and came to rescue you or anything."

"Whatever," said Harry, getting comfortable and closing his eyes again. "Not seen him at all today."

"Well if you see him or our little sister, tell them we're looking for them, right?"

"Yeah, okay."

It was only much later that Harry realised Blondie had not been in the cabin when the twins came in.

And neither was Larry.

* * *

"Hello, Harry," said Hermione, walking into his cabin and taking the seat across from him. "I won't ask if you completed your homework during the holidays -"

"Good," said Harry, not opening his eyes as he wondered just how many times during one trip he could be woken up.

Surprisingly resilient after a mere single year of exposure, Hermione easily ignored Harry's apparent rudeness and then proceeded to tell him all about her holidays, her homework, her parent's reactions to her first year of school, her extra study, the letters she wrote to Harry, the letters she wrote to other friends, her upcoming study plans, and just about every other thing she could think of.

"You're punishing me for something, aren't you?" asked Harry when pretending to snore didn't stop her, or even make her pause.

"Yes," she answered, smiling brightly.

"Was it the letters?" he asked after a moment of silent thought.

"The lack of them, specifically," she clarified, still beaming at him.

"Do you think this will make me write next year or something?" he asked, frowning.

"See, it is possible to force you to learn," said Hermione happily. "You just need the right incentive."

"This isn't going to be a good year," groaned Harry.

"And I haven't even started on you for not saying sorry."

* * *

"So what do you have planned for this year, Harry?" asked Ernie.

"Planned? I had something planned last year?"

He wasn't concentrating on the conversation though, since the horseless carriages currently had most of his attention. Was it a spell pulling them? Why did it smell sort of like Dudley's armpit on a hot day?

"Well you spent a lot of time making things last year," explained Ernie. "We all sort of thought you had a plan – that you were working towards something."

"Yeah, I was working towards not working," grumbled Harry, "but that didn't work out too well."

Harry stopped and blinked a few times.

"Wow, saying the w-word so many times tires me out. Think I had better have a power nap."

"So what are you going to do this year then?" asked Justin, his swotty accent having reasserted itself over the break.

"I am going to do exactly what I have always done. As little as possible."

With that, he closed his eyes and leaned back, his mind mulling over the mystery of the carriage and how he could find out more about it.

* * *

Returning to Hogwarts made Harry very happy.

Soon enough there would be classes with tons of absurd things to memorise and regurgitate on demand. Then there would be loads of writing, note taking, and Snape, of course, but for now, during the opening feast, with his friends around him sharing the tales of their holidays and no assignments or extra study to worry about, Harry was as happy as he could possibly be while still awake.

Hearing that Ron and his sister had apparently nearly been trapped in the barrier at platform nine and three quarters by a rogue elf did give Harry a slightly funny feeling of concern, but not enough to justify ending the night early by going to tell somebody about his own encounter with Dib-dib-dob or whatever its name was.

Besides, he was sure somebody would be looking into it, now that another couple of students were involved, and if they didn't, well there was always tomorrow.

* * *

Lockhart was Harry's new hero.

Smiley was a bit too full of himself, no doubt about that, but in all the lessons so far, the Professor didn't actually do anything. Not a single spell had passed his lips, not a wand was waved, and nothing of note was accomplished by the man being paid to be there.

To Harry, it was an awe-inspiring feat to pull it off.

The students spent their class time reading the informative and rather entertaining books, and then just had to recall the stories in them, emphasising Smiley's undoubtedly exaggerated heroism. With the spells and techniques he had developed for fake reading last year, it was a piece of cake.

Sure, Harry was sometimes dragged up to the front to help act out the more dramatic, fanciful scenes from the books, but at least they didn't have a cage full of pixies let loose on them like the Gryffindors.

"Grrr, grrr," said Harry, making absolutely no effort to appear very werewolf-like at all.

"That's it, Harry," encouraged Smiley. "Now come at me with intent to kill."

Harry cringed inwardly at the sniggers of his classmates and seriously thought about charging Smiley and letting loose some of the old Harry-Kari from his Dudley days, but then decided it would likely be a lot of trouble explaining to his head of house why he had killed another defence professor.

* * *

Harry hated having motivation forced upon him, but it seemed to be happening more and more lately. Personally, he blamed Fuzzy, mainly because doing that was easier than considering anything complex like the teachers might actually be learning to handle him.

"Mr Potter, I will not teach you how to transfigure a nose for that hideous mannequin until you have mastered all of this year's curriculum and obtained at least an E on your assignments."

He really wished the older students hadn't, for no discernable reason, started boycotting anything to do with Larry.

"But it's like an extra credit assignment," he protested.

"Far from extra credit, you are well on your way to losing House points if I ever see that thing in my class again," said Professor Kitty. "Now put it away and get back to your class work."

Grumbling, Harry stuffed Larry back into his expanded book bag.

He really didn't understand what everybody had against Larry, but it was getting annoying.

* * *

"So how do you avoid the more nuttier fans?" asked Harry, thinking about the weird kid with the camera that kept popping up everywhere – Kevin Creepy or something – and the mystery person who kept saying 'meep' at him every now and then before disappearing or hiding.

He was stuck with Smiley serving a detention for something so insignificant even Snape probably couldn't remember what it was.

"If they mob you that much, it must be a pain to get any peace and quiet," he added.

Smiley was a surprising source of knowledge on how to milk the most out of his fame, and often gave Harry pointers on proper marketing techniques. Harry now understood the mistake he made flooding the market with his socks and had resolved to do better next time, if he ever got his elf volunteers back.

He still didn't understand why his former free workforce seemed to be so absent this year, but so long as they were happy, he didn't mind.

_( In the deepest, darkest kitchen of the castle, two evenly matched warriors circled each other warily at the very limit of the tea towel binding them together, both snarling in defiance and challenge._

_Surrounding them was a crowd of Hogwarts elves, standing on progressively taller stacks of chairs, tables and other miscellaneous and precariously balanced items, effectively making a crude amphitheatre from everyday furniture._

_Strange, dramatic sounding music played from somewhere hidden behind the circles of spectators._

_Heaving on the towel to pull his opponent off balance, the larger of the two fighters stabbed at the other with his dirty duster, trying to smear dirt on the challenger's face._

_The challenger, a younger buck filled with the fires of ambition, ducked his head sideways and quickly pivoted to bring his filthy broom head around to swipe at the back of the other fighter. The older elf twisted desperately and blocked the vicious blow with his weapon, sending a cloud of dust into the air at the impact._

_The crowd roared in delight. Never before had the traditional fights for the Weasley's assignment gone on for so long, but with five of the messy redheaded family in the school at one time, the work reward had never been bigger, so there were a record number of elves battling for the right._

_"Makes his ears black with greasies," screamed one of the spectators excitedly, crushing his betting slip in his hands._

_At this rate, he would win six months of pot scraping duty – more than he had ever had to do before!_

_"Fills his mouth with mud!" )_

"I once hired a Goblin body guard," said Lockhart taking another sip of his tea, "but he turned out to be a vicious little monster and stabbed a rather pretty woman before I could stop him. Terrible incident, but she was able to walk again after some therapy and was ever so grateful when I visited her in the hospital. Now I just get others to do all my important shopping for me."

Harry made a mental note to look up possibly hiring a goblin bodyguard for the next time he went back to the Dursley's.

"This really is a marvellous invention," said Lockhart, nodding towards one of Harry's enchanted quills that was happily autographing pictures for them. It was modified to copy an original message Lockhart wrote, getting his style of handwriting down perfectly after only a bit of training.

"Sure saves us having to do it ourselves," agreed Harry before moving onto something he really wanted to know. "One thing, sir. You've never really mentioned what to do when things go wrong, like that girl getting stabbed. How do you stop things like that from becoming headline news all the time?"

Maybe it was Harry's compliments, or the fact the Boy-Who-Lived was apparently letting him become something of a mentor, or possibly even the fifth of scotch he was liberally lacing his tea with, but Gilderoy leaned back in his chair and shared the most honest advice he had ever given.

"Ah, Harry. Let me tell you about a special branch of magic that I am something of a prodigy in," he said.

"It's called Memory Charms…"

* * *

The first few times Harry heard the voice, he didn't really pay it any attention.

After all, living in a castle filled with ghosts, a poltergeist, barmy professors and all sorts of other 'interesting' things did tend to make one a bit less wary of unusual happenings. After a while he realised nobody else seemed to hear it, but he was far too busy trying to work out a way to get Larry into the classroom without been seen to bother worrying about it.

"Kill, must kill," repeated the mysterious voice as Harry was making his way back to the dorms late one night after falling asleep in the library.

A strange scraping noise echoed down the hallway, like sandpaper being dragged along stone.

Suddenly the wall down a bit from Harry gave a slight shudder, as if something had bumped into it from the other side. Harry stopped walking, since this was a bit more unusual than what he was used to ignoring.

The wall gave another dull thump, and the scraping sounded louder, but different, like the sand paper was now twisting and turning, trying force its way through the solid stone.

Standing still, Harry was seriously thinking about saying something, maybe calling out to whatever it was making the noise, when the thumping stopped and the original sandpaper-on-stone noise started up again, heading the other direction.

"Must diet," whispered the voice.

"Too fat for thin pipessss," it hissed, fading off into the distance.

After a moment, Harry shrugged and continued walking.

* * *

"Moongirl, why does Larry's mouth keep going back to that big 'O' shape?" asked Harry. "I have to keep doing a spell to make it close, but every now and then it opens back up again. I am seriously thinking about sewing it shut or something."

"I'm not actually sure," admitted Luna, who Harry noticed was not wearing any shoes. "A couple of Seventh years on the train saw me working on him and offered to help out with the mouth. I think they might have been playing a joke on us, but I can't be certain."

Harry nodded in understanding. Seventh years were a bit like that, always giggling and laughing at jokes younger years just did not get. Harry was personally sure the stress of fifth year exams got to them all, since almost everybody older than that acted like Mandrake roots just before they were ripe enough to stew.

"Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing, but I wish it looked a bit more realistic. Even with the hair the right colour, there is still something wrong."

The fact that just about everybody else shuddered when they saw Larry was proof of that, although Harry didn't see any problem with his doppelganger, aside from a distinct lack of mobility he hoped to rectify with more spells.

"Now," he continued, deciding to let the matter slide, "why aren't you wearing any shoes, and is it a good enough reason for me to use too? Laces are a real pain."

* * *

"Potter!" yelled Snape, despite the fact he was only a couple of desks away from Harry.

"Yes, Professor?" asked Harry, doing his best not to show how he had almost lost a finger due to Greasy's interruption.

"What do you think you are doing?" snarled Greasy, storming towards him.

"Cutting my ingredients into perfect one centimetre thick slices, sir," answered Harry, keeping his voice level, clear, and as innocent as possible.

"That, is not a silver bladed knife," said Greasy.

"No, sir," agreed Harry amicably.

Silence.

Unnerving silence.

More silence, disturbed only by the subdued sounds of the rest of the class going on with their potion making while also eagerly watching the next episode in the Snape-Vs-Harry drama out of the corner of their eyes.

Harry knew he couldn't keep his silence for much longer under that intense glare, and was going to crack soon, but he tried to hold out for a little while longer.

"Well?" snapped Greasy, apparently too excited at the prospect of having something to pick on to let the silence take its toll on Harry's nerves.

"Well what, sir?" asked Harry, forcing himself to not let out a relieved sigh at not having broken first.

Greasy's face shifted to that particular colour Harry knew meant the git was torn between outrage and glee: Glee at being about to yell at Harry. Outrage because Harry obviously didn't care that he might be in trouble.

"Why are you not following instructions? Are they too complicated for you? Perhaps you should go back to brewing last year's potions, although, if I recall correctly, you were barely able to make those simple concoctions, even with the use of your 'toys'."

"I am following instructions, sir," said Harry. "Cut into one centimetre thick slices-"

"-With a silver bladed knife," interrupted Greasy.

"With a silver blade," finished Harry, correcting the professor. "This has a silver blade, sir."

Greasy shot a quick look at the board, along with almost everybody else in the room, and Harry knew they could all see it didn't say anything about a knife there.

"How dare you bring another one of your ridiculous inventions into my classroom," began Greasy, trying to deflect attention from the fact Harry was right.

"Thank you for the compliment, sir, but I didn't invent this. It is Mandoline slicer, and it dates back to at least the sixteenth century."

Greasy face went a shade darker.

"Muggle filth," the horrible man practically growled.

"Oh no, sir," said Harry, putting on his best 'shocked at the suggestion' expression. "I made this myself by hand. It is pure wizardkind-built.

"This however," he said reaching into his bag to pull out a state of the art plastic and steel slicer. "This is a mass produced work of art. It slices, it dices, and can even make crinkle cuts. Any thickness and any length. This little beauty is guaranteed to make perfect uniform cuts each and every time or your money back!"

Seeing a twitch start to develop over Greasy's left eye, Harry got that warm fuzzy feeling again.

Merlin he loved being back at school.

* * *

"So if you can remove memories, like you did for me with that Aunt Petunia in the shower scene, can you put memories into people's heads too?" asked Harry while watching a charmed ink stamp place 'kisses' on a stack of Lockhart's photos during yet another detention.

Taking a cast of the defence professor's lips to make the stamp had been a bit gross, but amusing experience. Setting up a production line where the press photos where stamped, signed, then stuffed in envelopes was interesting and easy, and now they could watch another detention drift by without doing a thing except talk and drink tea.

It was a nice bonus that Harry was getting a knut for each picture. He knew Smiley was getting a lot more than that, but he didn't mind, not when the extra bonus was that Greasy was the one who kept sending him here for punishment. No doubt the bastard thought Smiley was worse than scrubbing cauldrons or hand washing the entry hall, but he obviously had no idea just how well Harry got along with the new Defence professor.

"That's a much more difficult proposition," answered Lockhart relaxing back into his recliner while sipping his 'special blend' tea. "It is common knowledge that everybody sees the same thing differently, so trying to give a person a false memory can end up leaving them very confused. Details are almost impossible to get right and everything gets very mixed up when you try to link it other memories the way a normal one is."

"I see," said Harry, not really understanding the explanation but not concerned enough to dig deeper. "Pity I can't just take a copy of somebody else's memory to watch later and learn how things were done."

Lockhart abruptly nearly spat out his drink and started coughing.

"Sorry," the professor said as he regained his composure. "Went down the wrong hole."

Harry nodded, not really bothered by it.

"Professor," he asked as another thought occurred to him at seeing the stack of envelopes growing steadily. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in giving away a little gift to your admirers along with the picture? Something I can get quite cheap for you? Maybe something like a pair of quality socks..."

* * *

"Meep" squeaked a small voice.

All Harry caught was a flash of red hair as his latest stalker disappeared back around the corner behind him.

"I'm starting to wish that wouldn't keep happening," he mumbled to himself.

* * *

Charms was still Harry's favourite subject by far.

While the others in his class found revising the simple spells learned the previous year boring, Harry found nothing wrong with going over something he already knew very well – it was a lot easier than learning something new. Of course, he was almost constantly revising anyway, just not the same way most people went about it.

"Morning, Harry," said Sue as the boy-who-lived wandered into the Great Hall just before classes were due to start, and took a seat near her. "You sleep in again?"

"Nah, I've been awake for a while," said Harry, taking out his wand and tapping the plate in front of him.

Then he whisked his wand through a simple series of spells easily recognisable as been related to the charms revision was covering, although not quite the same.

Sue and a few others watched in fascination as Harry's plate suddenly wormed towards the half empty platters. After a couple more swishes and taps of Harry's wand, the cutlery jumped up and ran after it. Reaching the first platter, the animated fork and knife started heaping food onto the plate.

"You are really getting good at that," complimented Sue. "I could barely get my pineapple to dance in the exam last year."

"Dance? Mine just rolled off the desk!" laughed Ern. "If it wasn't for the fact it rolled up over a stack of books first, I reckon I would have failed!"

"Yeah, Harry. You must practice an awful lot to be that good," said Sue. "What's your secret?"

"Actually, I don't practice at all," said Harry, earning a few murmurs of disbelief. "It's true. Practice implies doing the same thing over and over in order to be able to get better at it. I don't do that. When I can, I use the spells, end of story. It just so happens I can see a dozen places to use them where most of you do something else, like reach over and get your food by hand."

"Potter! Was that your bleeding fork that just stole my bacon?" screamed an irate fourth year girl from halfway down the table.

"Er, maybe you should practice a bit too?" suggested Ernie.

"Nah," said Harry, looking only slightly concerned as his food-laden plate returned with the knife and fork running along behind. "There probably wasn't any bacon left on the table so it grabbed it from wherever it found it first, but where did my spoon go?"

From the table next to them, Draco suddenly let out a very girlish scream.

"Ah," said Harry. "Don't worry about it then."

Yep, Charms was definitely still his favourite subject.


	3. Rise of a Dark Lord

_Don't expect too much more of this :(_

_Thanks to AFC and goku90504 for the help._

* * *

"Up," said Harry.

The mat under him shuttered, a ripple rolling down its length, but didn't rise.

It was actually a tapestry taken from a wall nearby, but Harry chose to call it a mat anyway, since that was easier than trying to find a real mat.

Since he fully intended to put it back once he was finished with it, and he had no intention of carting a proper carpet from somewhere else when there were perfectly good ones already hanging around doing nothing important, he didn't see a problem with borrowing it for his experiments.

"Hmm. Up," he repeated forcefully, then he had to grab for the edges as it jerkily rose about two feet off the floor.

"Sweet," he laughed, once the panic passed.

All the time he spent reading about brooms before mutilating the old second-hand one to attach to Dudley's bike was really coming in handy, and Harry loved it when a single effort paid off more than once.

"Go," he ordered.

Obediently the enchanted tapestry began moving forward, picking up speed until it was travelling at a fast walk.

"Ha! Take that Gravity," said Harry, grinning as he flew down the long hallway he had selected for his first ride.

Brooms were cool and loads of fun, but the size of the mat meant it could be used to move around large loads, much like his garden wheelbarrow at the Dursleys, or hopefully, in place of it (eventually). It also gave him the option of lying down, which was always a bonus if a long trip was involved.

Plus, nobody told him he couldn't ride flying carpets around the castle, yet.

"Stop," he said, well please at having flown about two thirds of the hallway without incident – a very successful first test.

Predictably, the mat kept moving, and increased its speed.

"Oh, bollocks," said Harry. "Stop!"

The mat ignored him, of course, except to speed up more. Maybe he should have spent more time on the brakes of the bike after all.

With only a few metres of his flight path left, Harry threw himself off the mat, which promptly gave a sudden lurch of speed as his weight left it.

He tumbled to a halt and looked up just in time to see his former ride crash into the wall at the end of the hallway, crumpling and folding quickly and softly like the cloth it was.

"Curse you, Gravity," he swore quietly.

Picking up the tapestry, he used a sticking charm to hang it back up on the closest wall, which was not where it came from but was good enough. Harry watched the dizzy and battered inhabitants stagger off while swearing at him, and suddenly wondered if the reason Larry kept falling off the mat, even with sticking charms, had something to do with the high likelihood of crashing.

Nah.

* * *

The worst part of Astronomy was having to stay up at night.

"Mr Potter, that is possibly the most damaged telescope I have ever seen. Are you sure you can view anything with it?" asked Professor Sinistra, who Harry privately referred to as Lefty.

"It works perfectly, Professor. Better than perfect in fact," he answered.

"But there are several holes along its length and it looks like it is bent in the middle," she said.

"Oh those. Yeah, I'll get around to patching them, one day," answered Harry. "They don't actually let any light in – they're more cosmetic than anything now that I sealed the inside with some charms."

"And the bend?"

"It's more of a dent really, and it doesn't make that much of a difference."

"Mr Potter, if you cannot afford a replacement telescope, the school-"

"No! I mean, thank you very much, but there really isn't any problem. Here, take a look for yourself," invited Harry, moving out of the way so that the teacher could use it.

Although doubtful, Professor Sinistra moved behind the scope and peered through. There was a moment before her eyes adjusted, and then her breath caught in her throat.

"My word, Mr Potter. What have you done? This is incredible."

The image was fantastic, much better than the small telescope should have been able to produce.

"Professor Flitwick help me with the charms a lot, but it has a sort of expanding charm on the big end to make the big lens-"

"The objective lens," interrupted the Professor, her eye still glued to the scope as she marvelled at the clarity and magnification.

"-yeah, that. Anyway, it basically makes it a lot bigger than it really is. It also has some charms on it to keep it perfectly clean and clear all the time, and there's some adjustable shrinking Runes a few sixth years helped me with on the tube to make it a lot longer on the inside than the outside. The little lens-"

"The eyepiece lens," she automatically corrected.

"-the eyepiece lens, has the same clean and clear charms plus a few others to flip the image and stuff like that, oh and I've also got a cushioning charm on that end, since the rubber bit is pretty worn out. The legs are a little bent because they've been transfigured to absorb vibration and movement, and I put weak sticking charms on the feet to help keep it in place."

"Well," said the Professor, reluctantly pulling away. "That is excellent work and your results make this old thing perform like a much larger and significantly more expensive scope. Why did you make these changes to such an old device to begin with, rather than the telescope you had last year?"

"It was all a bit experimental," explained Harry. "I didn't want to risk my good one, just in case something went wrong, so I used this second hand one I bought during the holidays."

Since it worked, he wasn't going to go to all the trouble of enchanting the better looking one now, but he figured it was best not to mention that to Lefty.

"Ah – that was probably very wise. I must say, even though it is not a standard school telescope, I cannot see any reason why you can't continue to use it. Well done, and five points to Hufflepuff, for an excellent understanding of how your telescopes work."

Smiling gratefully, Harry waited until the Professor walked away before utilising one of the features he knew would have gotten it banned.

"_Point me_ Cygnus," whispered Harry.

Obediently the scope slowly swung around to aim directly towards the last object on the list he needed tonight. He had a good idea where to find it anyway, but this made things a lot easier, and faster, which meant he would be back in bed sooner.

Finally finished, he tried one more thing that had been bugging him ever since he got the seeking feature working.

"_Point me_ Luna"

The scope moved, but instead of going where he expected, it once again pointed straight at one of Hogwarts many towers. It was always the same tower, when he tried it at night. During the day, it was apparently random.

"That's just so weird," he sighed, quite willing to have to find the moon on his own rather than try to figure out what was going wrong with the Point Me charm.

* * *

"Harry? What is this unholy contraption you've left sitting on the table?" asked the seventh year Hufflepuff assigned to help the lower years with their study if they needed it. It wasn't unusual for Potter to get help with anything and everything, but this new thing was strange, even for him.

It looked like a glass jar was trying to mate with a ceramic pot, using several knife blades, and it had a hand crank. There were items in Filch's notorious 'student discipline' collection that looked less threatening, and a great deal more understandable.

"Well you asked if I had anything else that might help with potions, right?" asked Harry. "This is meant to be a 'hand powered blender' and it is going to make your life a load easier when it comes to mashing up things like Flobberworms. Not to mention it's also awesome for making milkshakes and stuff, although you want to clean it out thoroughly before swapping from worms to ice-cream, if you know what I mean."

"Did you make it?" asked the prefect, eyeing the glass jar a bit warily.

Those knife blades looked sharp, and although the construction was not typically 'Potter' – that is to say, slapdash - there was a lot of spellotape holding it together. It looked like it may have exploded or ripped itself apart once or twice, or more.

"Yeah, sort of. Anyway, all you have to do is help me figure out how to use magic instead of hand cranking, and we are good to go!" smiled Harry.

It took them a good hour to get the details worked out, mostly because of a half a dozen or so other people trying to be helpful with suggestions and ideas, but eventually they had a functioning model. It immediately went to work churning out milkshakes from various ingredients purloined from the nearby castle kitchens by excited Muggleborns.

"Where do you get ideas for this kind of stuff from?" a fifth year asked Harry.

Harry hesitated, only recently having being made aware by Ron of a whole Ministry Department dedicated to making sure nobody 'mis-used' Muggle artefacts by enchanting them.

Trying to explain why there was a catalogue full of non-electrical devices to a modern Muggle was hard enough. Explaining it to a wizard would be an exercise in futility. Harry was just glad he had found the Lehman's Hardware guide his uncle had thrown out.

While Vernon thought the hand turned drills were a good laugh, Harry found some of the devices and tools in it inspiring. He had never heard of the Amish before, but he owed them one now.

"Er, it's a long story," deflected Harry to the fifth year. "Here, have another milkshake."

* * *

"Tell me again why I am going to an extra class," asked Harry, as Sue and Han dragged him towards the great hall.

Everybody was being a lot more accepting of him this year for some reason. Barely anybody bugged him about sleeping whenever he could, or about any of his slovenly ways, but the two girls were on a mission, and their insistence overrode Harry's resistance.

"It's not an extra class," explained Sue. "It's a duelling club. It'll be loads of fun."

"Hey, you know what else would be loads of fun? Sleeping. Sleeping is great fun. Let's go back to the dorm and I can show you," said Harry.

"Shush," said Han. "You sleep too much as it is."

"Don't worry, Harry," Sue added. "Nothing bad is going to happen. Professor Lockhart is just going to show us some basic duelling."

"It's not like anything can go wrong."

A cold shiver ran down Harry's spine that had nothing to do with the drafts in the castle.

* * *

"So being a Parsleytongue is bad then?" asked Harry.

They were back in the Hufflepuff common rooms after the disastrous duelling club, where Harry's sudden exposure as a Parselmouth became the hot topic of conversation in the castle.

"That's Parselmouth, unless you can talk to herbs, that is," said Han.

"Parcelmouth?"

"No, that's the magical language of the postal system," said Han. "Parselmouth."

Sue giggled, but Harry didn't have a suitable come-back ready and so ignored them both.

"Whatever," he said dismissively. "And there is nobody out there who would pay me to translate for them or something?"

A career translating snake talk could be cool, so long as it paid well, which it should if the ability was as rare as everybody seemed to think it was. He could see that as an easy meal ticket for sure.

"No, Harry," said Ern. "It's the sign of a Dark Wizard. Slytherin himself was one and was called _Serpent-tongue -_"

"Not to his face, I bet," mumbled Harry.

"-but don't worry, Harry. Anybody who has ever met you couldn't think you Dark, mate."

"I just don't get why being able to talk to snakes is bad." he said.

"Because they are the symbol of evil," explained Ern.

"A snake? Evil? You have to be kidding me. I've only ever talked to two; one was a lazy bastard living a life of luxury in the zoo, and other thought Justin was a tree and wanted to climb him. How's that evil?"

"They just are," insisted J. "Even Muggles know that."

"Fine," said Harry, giving in.

Logic was never one of his strong points, and Wizard Logic defied most everybody anyway.

"So can I cast strange and powerful Parsleytongue magic then?" he asked. "Parsleymagic?"

"That's Parseltongue, and no. They're snakes. What makes you think there would be some sort of powerful magic in speaking Snake?"

"Well, it is a magical language…"

"No," said Sue. "Being able to speak it is magical. It's just a language, and doesn't give speakers any special powers any more than any other language. Otherwise we'd all be welcoming our Snake Overlords who'd rule over us with their super powerful snake spells."

"Well that's just silly," said Ern. "I mean they can't hold a wand, so of course they can't cast spells, can they?"

Half the room stopped to look at Ernie.

Wizard Logic indeed.

* * *

"Harry, you aren't using the House-elves as slave labour again, are you?" asked Hermione after Herbology one day.

Harry was pretty sure she had tried to ask him about it a few times during class, but he had refused to remove his earmuffs even after having successfully re-potted his baby Mandrake root without ever lifting it out of the soil, thus managing to basically ignore her, and everybody else, including the teacher.

He still wasn't sure why they were meant to go to all that trouble of pulling the ugly things out of their nice warm dirt beds in order to move them to a bigger pot when all they really had to do was cast the expanding charm on the existing pot and stuff more soil into it.

Of course, his charm still needed a lot more work. It left him with an odd shaped pot, but it did the job, even if it didn't get him the extra points Nev got for doing it right.

"No," he answered, deciding to ignore her inflammatory wording. "Why?"

"I overheard one of the professors mentioning that the elves seem to be missing some of their normal duties," she answered.

"And you automatically assumed it was because I was forcing them to do something for me?" said Harry, managing to sound rather put-out.

"Sorry," said Hermione bashfully.

"I should think so," said Harry. "You know I was only trying to help them out when they didn't have enough work on. Besides, I promised you I wasn't going make them do any 'income-generating' work anymore, and I gave them a share of the money I made. They didn't have a clue what to do with it mind you, so I had to make a few suggestions."

_(_ _Miles away, in a dingy little arcade, the proprietors were suddenly overwhelmed by an influx of customers; customers that didn't set off the door chimes and had appalling dress sense._

_"Stupid modern fashion," grumbled one of the ancient 18 year olds manning the counter. "Looks like they raided a charity bin or a lost and found box for their kit."_

_"Yeah," agreed the second one. "And boy, are these kids ugly or what?"_

_"Harry Potter is being the greatest wizard ever!" exclaimed one elf excitedly as he shoved more of the coins Harry had given him into the machine._

_Never ending quests collecting obscure artefacts from strange, impossible landscapes, and then using them to defeat evil things and rescue the princess or save the world - this was almost as good as work! )_

"They are probably just taking some time off to do their own thing, or have found a really dirty room filled with hundreds of years worth of rubbish to clean up or something," said Harry.

"I guess so," said Hermione, not completely convinced.

One of the elves did mention Ron's sister was giving them a lot of extra work this year, although what she was doing with all that chicken blood and feathers he really didn't want to know, and he was not going to try to explain it to Hermione.

"So have you found out anything about Parsleytongue yet?" he asked.

Harry often found it easier to ask somebody to tell him what he needed to know rather than find it out himself, but Hermione made it so ridiculously easy he sometimes wondered if he was in real risk of losing the ability to research anything himself. In this case, he knew that he didn't even have to ask her to look, she would have automatically gone and done it.

"Yes," she answered, taking out a massive book from her enchanted bag.

He had given it to her as a present after once again feeling sick seeing the weight she used to carry around in her old non-magical one. It was a miracle the girl didn't have one arm that resembled a gorilla's heavy lifter.

"There is no mention of any such thing as Parselmagic," she said, opening up the book to one of several bookmarks in it.

The others probably indicated pages for him to read. Well, pages she probably vainly hoped he might read.

"Bugger. What about being able to speak to other animals? Can I talk to Dragons?"

"Dragon? Why would you think that?" she asked, looking rather surprised at the question.

"Wishful thinking? I mean, they're a kind of a snake, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't go saying that aloud around anybody - you'll get laughed at."

* * *

"Potter, where are your shoes?" asked the prefect on breakfast duty.

He was really only there to help the first years, but Potter's often blatant disregard for the House spirit was something they all paid attention to, if only for the laughs.

"I think something took them," said Harry. "My trunk keeps spewing everything out all over the place and today my shoes aren't in the pile."

"Nobody is going to believe your shoes have been stolen," said the prefect.

"Hey, it's not like I am the only one it's happening to," said Harry. "You go ask the Ravenclaw prefects about Moongirl, I mean Luna, I think that's her name – yeah Luna, anyway, you go ask them about Luna. Not only do her shoes go missing, but so do her books and clothes."

The prefect suspected Potter was up to something, but he knew his inner Hufflepuff would force him to investigate before reporting to Professor Sprout about Potter's latest 'quirk'.

And so did Harry.

* * *

"Harry. Hey, Harry. Come on, I know you aren't asleep. Everybody knows you can't sleep with a ghost in the same room. Harry! I want to hear you speak snake again. That was cool. I thought you were egging it on, at first, but when it looked like it was laughing I figured you were trying to stop it."

Slowly the messy black haired head rotated around 180 degrees to look at the person calling him.

"Mother of Morgana!" yelped Justin, seeing the expressionless face of Larry staring at him. "Er, sorry - I thought you were Harry."

The mannequin's head returned to the front of the class where professor Binns droned on, and Justin resolved to try to never disturb the freaky and quite unnatural looking thing ever again.

* * *

"How about other reptiles then? Like lizards? Can I speak to them?"

"Nope," said Hermione.

"Goanna's?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Worms?"

"Even if you could, would you want to?"

"Hmm. Well is there anything else I can talk to?"

"No. Wait - yes. Axolotls."

"Axolotls?"

"Axolotls."

"Cool. Er, what the hell is an Axolotl?"

"It's sort of an amphibious cross between a lizard and a fish. A type of salamander that lives in water but can breathe air, I think. Here is a picture of a white one," she explained, holding open the large book and pointing to a colour drawing.

"Yuck. Damn that's ugly. Does it do anything special?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope," she said, smiling.

"Oh, this sucks!"

* * *

The second attempt at making a flying carpet went significantly better than the first.

"Incoming!" screamed Harry as his out of control ride shot through the corridors of the school.

Students of all ages yelped and leapt aside, allowing Harry to barrel past them.

In this case, 'better' mostly meant he was having more fun, not that the brakes were working or anything important like that, despite the extra weight included on this trial.

"Eeeeeeeep," screamed Sue, holding on tightly behind him.

And fun just needed to be shared with unsuspecting study partners, didn't it?

* * *

"So this Pensieve thing, it will let you watch another person's memory, like a movie?" asked Harry.

He still didn't think it was fair he got detention while Sue only got a warning, but then he knew he deserved it a lot more than she did - except at the end. No way should she have gotten away with that kind of swearing, no matter who her aunty was.

He should have taken Moongirl. She wouldn't have gotten angry. Catatonic maybe, but not angry.

"Oh it's much better than a picture theatre," explained Lockhart. "You actually get to move around inside the memory, viewing it from any angle you want. I've seen some pretty, er, interesting memories in one a good friend had, I can tell you!"

"Wicked," said Harry, bundling up the last of this week's letters as his detention came to a close.

"And you can use anybody's memories?" he asked.

"Yes, even a Muggle, but it takes a master Legilimencer to extract the memory intact."

"If I say, had somebody sit down and read a book, you could take lots of copies of the memory and sell them for people to watch over and over?"

"A charming idea, and one not without merit. Unfortunately, Pensieves are very rare and you would not have much of a market," said Lockhart, almost to himself. "Usually only the very rich have them, and they rather different memories they'd much prefer to view."

He paused for a moment, and appeared to be deep in thought.

"Bugger," said Harry.

"Of course, there are Prophecy Orbs," said Lockhart thoughtfully.

"The what now?" asked Harry.

* * *

"Wake up, Harry," said Sue, dropping a heavy pile of books onto the table next to where his head was resting on his arms. "The assignment report on the fifth Goblin rebellion won't write itself you know."

She refused to study with him alone anymore now, just in case he somehow again managed to convince her to take part in one of his experiments.

"Finn," said grunted Harry groggily, as he dropped his head back down.

"What do you mean you finished it?" asked Hermione, taking a seat directly across from him, her own stack of books far too high to be balancing without the liberal use of magic. "You hadn't even started it fifteen minutes ago."

Nobody bothered to ask how she could possibly have understood his mumbling. After all, she did spend more time with him than just about anybody, plus, her parents where dentists.

"Mout," said Harry, clumsily pushing a piece of parchment out from under his arm.

"Wore you out? In fifteen minutes? Let me see," she said, grabbing the page and holding it up to read.

"Well?" asked Sue when Hermione lowered the page, a mixed look of astonishment and disbelief on her face.

"It's just two words," she answered. "'We won'."

"Grruuffm," snored Harry happily.

* * *

"Okay, Hermione, what about being a Dark Lord? Since I can speak to snakes, maybe I can be a Dark Lord. I'd call myself Dark Lord Harry, or maybe Darry for short. Will I get access to special, wicked Dark powers or something if I do go over to the dark side?"

"No."

"How about an undead army of sycophants waiting for their master's call?"

"No, but I think making an army like that is part of a Dark Lord's job."

"Make them? Bugger that, but hang on, could the fear that I might just do that sort of thing make governments give me land and money to keep away?"

"Not unless you can actually threaten them with something, and you don't know how to raise an undead army, do you?"

"No, well, not yet. I don't suppose anybody is scared of an army of Axolotls?"

"Possibly people suffering from Scoliodentosaurophobia, but no."

"Damn. I'm just scared of the name. Well do I get automatic membership into a secret, sinister council who want to rule over everyone?"

"No."

"Hmm. How about something more mundane then, like a seat in the house of Lords, because I would be a Lord too?"

"That's the same as your last question."

"This still sucks."

* * *

Harry's second Halloween feast at Hogwarts was going splendidly.

The food was even more spectacular than the normal meals, the Great hall was decorated every bit as well as the previous year, and so far nobody had burst through the door to announce the presence of a monster in the dungeon.

Just then, the doors flew open and an out of breath seventh year burst into the room to yell excitedly about a monster being loose in the castle killing cats.

Harry sighed.

* * *

"Enemies of the heir beware," read Harry looking at the bloody writing on the wall.

It had been discovered a few weeks before, but Harry hadn't bothered to go out of his way to see it. He had in fact stubbornly refused to leave the feast on the night it was discovered until ordered back to his common rooms by the Headmaster.

Of course, he won five house points for not immediately running off to look at the scene of the crime, the way everybody else did, but that didn't take the sting of another ruined Halloween away.

Mr Filch had apparently wanted to clean the words off, but Professor Dumbledore insisted it stay in case it helped provide a clue somewhere further down the track.

Despite being there for weeks, People still stopped to read and gossip about it, and speculation about heir's identity was still rife too.

"It's not good form to be seen reviewing your handiwork, Potter," laughed Slick when he saw Harry reading the wall.

"Are you the heir?" asked another person Harry didn't know, or couldn't be bothered to remember more likely. "Is that why you can speak Parseltongue?"

"Don't be stupid," said an older Slytherin disgustedly. "The heir of Slytherin would never be in Hufflepuff."

"Hey!" objected one of J's mates. "He could be. It would be a hell of a lot sneakier than being in Slytherin."

Several people murmured apparent agreement.

"I could see him being a Ravenclaw, but not a 'Puff," said a different Slytherin Harry vaguely recognised from Quidditch. "He would more likely be a Gryfindork than a 'Puff. Slytherin would turn in his grave."

Before long, a full-blown argument was underway, with everybody trying to convince the others the heir was more likely to be in their house. Harry left before anybody tried to drag him further into the pointless debate.

The last thing he heard, as he walked away, was a fifth year 'Puff shout, "We can TOO murder in cold blood!"

* * *

"So, would the heir of Slytherin get special privileges or something?" asked Harry hopefully. "You, know, because he'd be like a founder of the school's last relative?"

"You would not be allowed to fly inside even if you were the heir of Slytherin, Mr Potter, which you are not," answered Professor Sprout, with a happy little smile.

"Oh come on! I so could be," protested Harry. "I speak Snake, you know?"

Her laughter did not bode well for his chances.

* * *

"Hey, Harry," called out a voice. "Got a moment?"

"What?" Harry said, turning around.

It was the Weasley twins, and they were wearing jumpers and beanies that had Snake patterns all over them.

"Just thought we'd say hello," said one.

"It's been ages since we talked to you," said the other.

Harry tried to reply, but all that came out was an angry sounding hiss.

"You do know he can't speak English when he is looking at a snake?" asked Han.

"Yes," agreed one twin, a huge smile on his face. "Yes we do."

Harry just hissed at them some more.

* * *

"Heya, Harry," said Ron. "Watchya up to?"

Harry grunted, not bothering to open his eyes.

Ron laughed.

"I thought so. Hey, did you know Malfoy is Slytherin's seeker? His dad bought a load of brooms to get him on the team. We reckon he's jealous of you getting on in your first year, even if it was only as a substitute."

Harry grunted again.

"Yeah, that's what I reckon. Hermione called him out on it and the git called her a mud-blood!"

Harry opened his eyes and sat up, which was a lot more reaction than Ron was expecting.

"I don't know if you know it, but that's one of the worst insults you can give someone," explained Ron quickly. "I got a bit upset and cursed the little bugger, not much mind you – just a slug belching hex, but it was really funny. So anyway, I got a detention for my trouble. Can you give me some pointers on what Lockhart makes you do?"

"Is Hermione, okay?" asked Harry.

"Er, yeah, I think. I mean I got him back for her," said Ron, starting to get a bit worried at the gleam in Harry's eyes.

"Yeah, well done. Anyway, Smiley? Don't worry about it. He'll likely just get you to read his fan mail – piece of cake."

Then Harry stood and walked off with a determined stride.

Behind him, Ron smiled.

* * *

"Hermione, Ron told me what happened with Draco," said Harry, sitting down next to where the girl was helping Nev with some of his homework.

Surprised at Harry's tone, Hermione took a moment to gather her thoughts.

"I'm okay," she said, surprisingly touched at his concern. "Thanks for coming to see me, but it was weeks ago and I am over it now."

"I know, but that's not good enough, so here," he said holding out a box. "I don't normally go for this sort of thing unless somebody really deserves it, like Greasy."

Completely caught off guard, Hermione was speechless, so instead of replying, she took the offered box and opened it up.

It was full of snitches.

"It really wasn't hard to find out when the Slytherin team was going to be using the pitch to practice," explained Harry. "All I had to do was ask Ceddy about the new Hufflepuff training schedule, which I've got no intention of showing up to anyway, and he went and on and on about how unfair it was for Slytherin to have booked the pitch at all the best times in order to train their new seeker. Slick doesn't seem to be doing too well, though, despite all the training."

Hermione started giggling and had to cover her mouth with a hand to keep it quiet.

"I don't get it," admitted Neville. "What's that got to do with the snitches?"

"He stole Draco's snitches," explained Hermione, forcing down the laughter long enough to explain. "Draco probably spends every practice searching for a snitch that isn't there because Harry captures it immediately after it is released."

Harry knew it didn't necessarily take a lot of effort to punish people, you just had to know the right place to strike. Luckily, the snitches still had a strange fascination for him and flocked to him whenever they could.

"No way is that twit going to catch a snitch while I am around," pronounced Harry with uncharacteristic determination.

* * *

"Merry Christmas, Harry. Thanks for the socks."

"Merry Christmas, and you're welcome."

"Merry Christmas, Harry. I love the socks - thanks."

"Yeah, Merry Christmas. Glad you liked them."

"Thanks for the socks, Harry. Have a Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas. You're welcome."

"Did you give everybody a pair of socks?" asked Sue after watching Harry accepting thanks all morning.

"I did give Hagrid a hurricane lantern I cleaned up and cast a permanent light spell on so he doesn't have to worry about it going out or stuff, but other than that, yeah, pretty much socks for everyone," laughed Harry. "It was certainly easier than trying to find individual presents."

Plus, getting 'To: you From: me' on the cards took no effort at all, thanks to the quill he had developed for Lockhart.

"Still," he said after acknowledging another thank you. "Next year I think I might give out fewer presents. This is too much like hard work!"

* * *

"Luna, did you cast a spell on Larry to make him watch Quidditch?" asked Harry.

"No," answered the seemingly ditsy girl. "I did teach him how to change his underpants though – they were getting a bit dirty."

"Cool, thanks – hang on, what?"

* * *

"Spiders, get your petrified spiders," yelled B1.

"Rock solid, guaranteed not to rot or bite," added B2.

"What this?" said Harry, stopping to examine the contents of the vendor trays hanging from around the Weasley twins' necks.

They were filled with spider statues of all shapes and sizes. Very realistic spider statues at that. The detail was nothing short of horribly fantastic.

"Spiders," said B1. "Incredibly life-like and perfect for putting in younger brother's beds, breakfasts, or other potentially devastating-to-the-psyche locations."

"Attach a chain to them and use as necklace," said B2 holding up a sparkling silver chain with a rather large and very ugly spider attached to the end.

"Encase in glass to make an attractive paper weight," said B1, lifting out an even larger specimen suspended inside a globe of clear glass that looked suspiciously like a witch's crystal ball.

"Jam a stick up its bum and poke people with 'em," said B2 swapping the necklace for a truly ugly spider-on-stick.

"A thousand and one uses, all for the low, low starting price of two knuts," they chorused together perfectly timed.

"You two are a pair of nuts," laughed Harry. "Where did you get them?"

"Been finding them all over the place," said B1, taking the money from a passing student and handing over a statue. "Only one here and one there, but all mostly near the windows for some reason."

They were doing quite a brisk trade.

"What, and you are just picking them up and selling them?" asked Harry. "Damn, that's a good plan - practically no work at all and all pure profit. Wish I had thought of it, although I bet if you asked the House-elves, they'd be able to collect them up for you."

_( "Friese is feeling there is being more work at Hoggywarts, but Friese is only 33 levels from the Ultimate Challenge bonus level. Friese is sure the workies is still being there in a minutes."_

_)_

"Hey, maybe you could leave cages of other stuff around to get petrified, like butterflies or frogs or something," suggested Harry. "They'd probably sell a bit better than these things."

B1 looked at B2 as B2 looked back, and then they both stepped forward to put a friendly arm around Harry's shoulders, gently guiding him down the hallway.

"Harry, could we interest you in a partnership?"

* * *

"Third time's the charm," thought Harry as he climbed aboard version three of his flying carpet.

This time he was using the mat from the bathroom in his dorm, since the occupants of the tapestries had learned from his previous endeavours and tended to go running and screaming whenever he got too close to them. They usually went running straight to a professor, too, damn dobbers.

Flit already had a long talk with Harry about the legalities of charming carpets to fly, as well as the spells he had devised for doing so, but Harry had pointed out he wasn't actually flying, just hovering, and he had yet to use an actual carpet.

The Professor was not moved.

Still, Harry felt he couldn't let little things like the law or house points get in the way of progress, so here he was again.

"Go," said Harry.

Immediately the mat jerked forward, but he was expecting that and made sure to hold on tight.

"Stop," he said, and the mat did, sliding to a halt in only a couple of feet.

"Wicked," he said excitedly.

And the mat obeyed as best it could.

* * *

"Mr Potter, your injuries are not anywhere significant enough to warrant an overnight stay in the infirmary, or any time out of your classes," said Flo, using her sternest voice despite the hint of a smile that kept curling the edge of her mouth. "Now be off with you."

"I bet you'd say different if it was Quidditch related," grumbled Harry, rubbing his behind that still felt sore despite the nurse's spell. "Stupid flying mat."

Privately, Madam Pomfrey wished all she had to deal with where bruised backsides and bumped heads, even if they were effectively self-inflicted.

* * *

"I must say, Harry, that little project of yours is getting you an awful lot of detentions, isn't it?" asked Smiley, as another detention drifted by.

"What, my hovering mat? Yeah, I suppose, but I'd likely end up getting them for something else anyway."

"You are a bit of a scamp, aren't you?" laughed Smiley. "Reminds me a lot of myself at your age."

"Right," said Harry, privately not able to imagine Smiley as being anything like him. He was more likely a stuck-up prig like Percy Weasley. "Anyway, how did you go finding out where we can get some Prophecy Orbs from?"

"Ah yes! Your read-out-loud book idea. Great news. The department of Mysteries gets them from several different companies both here and overseas. Apparently there is a huge market for them, so they are very cheap – only five sickles each!"

"Wow," said Harry. "I had no idea that many people made prophecies."

"Yes, supposedly so, but there is even better news. I have managed to buy a decent quantity for testing at a third of the current rate!"

"Really? Where did you get them?"

"From here, Hogwarts! Your very own Divination professor has a whole trunk full of them, completely unused for some reason, and she was willing to part with them at a much discounted rate."

"That's fantastic. So you'll be able to set up a decent selection to begin with then, and then use them to sell the idea to investors?"

"Yes, my boy, and you'll get three percent of the sales, just like I promised."

"Excellent," said Harry.

Some people might think Harry was being hopelessly taken advantage of, but he knew – three percent for doing absolutely nothing was much better than ten or even fifty percent for working on it.

Plus he would get his very own copy of every orb.

Too easy.

* * *

Despite having an idea of what was coming after Smiley kept dropping not so subtle hints all month, Harry was still caught out when he was eventually targeted.

"Oy, you! 'Arty Potter!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry. "I've got a musical Valentine's day card for you. Come back here!"

Harry's Dudley-days were long behind him, but his instincts still served him well. In the blink of an eye, he was sprinting for the nearest corner, rapidly performing a by now familiar sequence of complex switching spells.

The dwarf rounded the corner in hot pursuit and grabbed a hold of his intended targeted only to reel back when it span around to face him.

"Blimming 'eck!" yelled the dwarf, falling onto his backside as he stumbled backwards.

Larry just stood there, perfectly still, blinking with unnatural regularity. Slowly the mannequin's mouth slipped open, getting wider and wider as if it was being force apart by something inside trying to get out, until it made a perfect 'O' shape.

"Sod this," said the dwarf scrambling to his feet. "'ere you go."

He threw the Valentine's day card at the floor in front of the creepy thing and bolted for the exit, tearing the fake cherub wings off his back as he ran.

Harry, several feet away and hidden under his cloak, breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was close."

Larry didn't say a thing.

* * *

Cedric and the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team cornered Harry in the common room one day, and explained that they thought it was high time he paid his dues and took a turn at actually playing a game of Quidditch.

"It's important you show you really are a part of our team," said Apple.

"Once Cedric finishes seventh year, you'll be the seeker," added Ricky. "You should have at least one game before then."

"Bollocks," said Harry, his internal bullshit radar going off so loudly it was probably audible to other people. "Try again."

There was a lot of sideways glances before Cedric finally spoke up.

"Harry, we have no idea how you do it, but I've never caught the snitch as quick as you have," he admitted, looking slightly embarrassed. "None of us have ever seen anybody catch it that fast before."

Harry thought for a moment, since it was easier than waiting for them to get around to the point.

"You want to humiliate the other team by finishing really quickly?" he asked.

"No!" said Cedric, gaining a few startle glances from his teammates, who obviously felt at least a little bit felt differently. "Well, not really."

"What else then? Are you scared to be outside while this heir is running around or something?"

More sideways looks and embarrassed shuffling answered Harry. They were Hufflepuffs after all and not Gryffindors. Very few left the supposed safety of the common room for any reason other than classes and meals lately, and even then, it was usually in groups of four or more.

"Whatever," he said. "I suppose it can't be any worse than being forced to sing those bleeding songs from the stands."

"Good lad", said Cedric, patting Harry on the shoulder.

And so it was that Harry found himself nervously mounting his broom to take part in his very first Quidditch match.

No sooner did Spike let the Snitch go and blow the whistle, than Harry suddenly discovered the little golden ball's fascination with him had spread to at least one bludger.

"Blimey!" he cursed, ducking out of the way of the rogue Bludger for the third time.

He was flying like a maniac, trying to keep away from the barrelling ball of death, and very nearly crashed into the side of one of the stands. Flipping his broom vertically, he watched in muted horror as the bludger continued in a straight course towards the audience.

Panicked screams rose through the crowd as it realised what was happening, but then the bludger suddenly veered sideways and targeted an almost empty section containing only two occupants – a small redheaded girl, and boy with messy black hair and an unusual expression.

"Meep!' squealed the girl before ducking behind Larry.

Harry and the rest of crowd watched in morbid fascination as the bludger barrelled towards the apparently unaware Larry and the girl hiding behind him. As it reached them, there was a blur of movement, and then a loud 'crack' echoed out over the crowd, causing everybody to flinch.

When they looked again, Larry sat still facing forward, unmoved save for his arm fully extended out from his side, his hand clamped solidly over the crushed, weakly twitching bludger.

The nudging of the snitch against Harry's arm eventually got his attention and he reached out absently to grab it out of the air, thus ending one of the shortest and most unusual Quidditch games in Hogwarts History.

He was really going to have to have another talk with Moongirl very soon.


	4. Plot? What plot?

_Short, but hopefully sweet..._

* * *

"The creature is a Basilisk," said Hermione excitedly as she came around the corner of the bookshelf with a very large book open in her arms. "Spiders flee from it and it kills with a single look, but its reflection will only petrify, not kill. I bet, nobody is dead yet because nobody has looked into directly into its eyes.

"Colin looked at it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nick, who can't die again, and Mrs Norris saw the reflection in a puddle, so none of them died, they were all just petrified. Being the King of Snakes, and with Slytherin as a Parselmouth too, I'll bet that's why only you can hear and understand it, Harry.

"I think it's been moving through the pipes in the wall, and that's when you've been hearing it. It all fits perfectly, you see? Even the fact somebody killed all of Hagrid's roosters fits, because they are deadly to it. The creature is a Basilisk. There can't be any doubt."

She looked up proudly from her book, directly into the blank, unnerving stare of Larry, the mannequin.

"Harry!"

* * *

Tom Riddle's Horcrux wasn't human. It had seemingly unlimited patience and had waited for decades until it was given to a victim without once getting frustrated, but two weeks in the possession of Harry Potter was pushing its limits.

Nothing it tried, not one urge or motivation could convince the boy to pick up a quill and write a single line inside of it. It was so close to achieving its new goal and yet so far. All the work that went into getting the previous owner to slip it into Potter's bag was so far for naught.

It was like Potter was an inhuman fortress of stability – immune to all compulsions.

Harry wasn't of course. He was just bone-lazy.

* * *

"Wake up, Harry. You're going to be late," said Ernie, pulling the bed covers off Harry in a much-practiced move.

"Merlin's crystal balls!" he yelled, stumbling backwards as Harry's head was exposed.

Strangely staring eyes peered at him over a wide open 'O' shaped mouth.

"Take it easy, Ern," said the real Harry, coming up behind the still shocked boy. "It's just Larry."

"What the hell is that thing doing in your bed?" asked Ernie, in a slightly panicked voice. "I thought you'd been turned to stone just like Justin."

"It's those damn roosters," said Harry wearily. "Ever since Hermione made her discovery and they put the blasted things all over the place, I just can't get a decent sleep. It's killing me."

"I know," agreed a very bleary eyed Zac, coming over to join them. "I hope they find and kill the bloody Basilisk soon. I've tried sleeping with my earmuffs on, but that's so damn uncomfortable I might as well just keep waking up."

From the distance, the sound of a rooster crowing echoed, just to emphasise the point. All night and all day the roosters crowed, constantly filling the school up with their deadly-to-Basilisks cries.

"But what's that got to do with this thing?" asked Ernie, nodding towards the mannequin in Harry's bed.

"I've been sneaking out trying to find a place to get a good kip," explained Harry. "Larry here is in case anybody does a head count or something. Everybody is so damn paranoid this year."

"Any luck?" asked Zac, rubbing his eyes and yawning loudly. "Finding a quiet place, that is?"

"Nothing so far, but I suspect the Professor's staff room might have some sort of sound proofing around it but I can't figure out a way to get in to check. Oh, and I have managed to find a deafness curse that we might be able to get put onto a necklace pendant or something so you can take it off when you want to hear again. I reckon it's not going to be too hard to convince an older year to help me get it working either."

"That sounds brilliant," said Zac. "Count me in for one."

It naturally went unsaid that Harry's idea wouldn't be had for free.

"Me too," said Ern, nodding in agreement. "But can you please stop leaving this thing around the place? It really gives me the willies, especially when you pull that swap trick and make it take your place in History."

"Freaks you out? I'm sure it did it all by itself the other day," said Harry.

A shiver ran down all three of their spines.

* * *

_Finally,_ the piece of Riddle's soul thought as it felt the tip of a quill press down onto one of its pages.

"My name is Harry Potter," came the unusually untidy scrawl, but the diary already knew that.

With all of its magical might, it reached out and tried to compel the boy to write more, to start the long process of stealing the victim's soul by slowly leaching it out, one question at a time.

"Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle." It wrote back. "Are we still at Hogwarts?"

There was a hesitation - a moment where the balance of the scales teetered - and then the quill pressed down again.

"My name is Harry Potter."

Momentary confusion. The Horcrux tried again.

"Yes, I know. I can read anything you write. Are you a student?"

More hesitation, and the Horcrux pressed harder, exerting itself like it had never before.

"My name is Harry Potter."

The diary roared in silent frustration and anger.

"My name is Harry Potter" wrote Larry again, getting neater with each pass.

"That thing gets creepier every time I see it," said Fred upon spying the mannequin sitting in Harry's usual spot in the library. "Harry had it holding an old wand the other day."

"I kind of like it," said George looking up from his library book. "But not as much as that Colin kid did before he got petrified, mind you. Now he was a creepy character."

They both shuddered at the memory.

"My name is Harry Potter," wrote Larry yet again, completely ignoring the abuse scrawling itself over the page under his artificial hand.

* * *

Checking both ways to make sure nobody was watching, Harry ducked into the classroom he secretly commandeered as a hidey-hole just recently. It was his little safe-haven. A place away from the other students and professors, where he could do nothing and not bother even pretending to be busy.

It looked like an enraged troll had been set loose in it.

Books and parchment lay scattered all over the floor as if carelessly dropped or thrown there. The accumulated contents of one of his pockets sat in a pile, obviously just tipped out with no regard to neatness. The few desks left in the room were pushed untidily against one wall, and his trunk sat on its side spilling its contents out onto the ground.

Yep, it was pretty much exactly how he had left it, except the trunk, which somehow always managed to tip itself over and dump stuff out.

"Hmm," said Harry. "The elves must be really busy. I can't believe those coins I gave them are still going"

_( "Twisty be getting another free games!" yelled one of the ugliest 'kids' still filling the video arcade._

_"Yay!" cheered a group of similarly dressed 'kids'. )_

"Ah well," shrugged Harry. "I guess it serves me right for making a mess. Suppose I should pick it all up. Nah. I'm sure they'll get to it one day, and I wouldn't want to deprive them of the fun they get cleaning up."

So he left, not noticing until much later that somebody else had been into the room, and had taken away that mysterious little black diary that always gave him an uncomfortable mental itch whenever it was close.

* * *

Although Harry normally chose to be fairly ignorant of the moods and feelings of the other students, even he couldn't ignore the terror permeating the ancient halls of Hogwarts.

Students, ghosts, pets and even portraits had previously being attacked; petrified by an unknown entity that the professors could not catch. Multiple rumours of the return of Slytherin's monster ran rampant through the school, some of them accurate, some completely fallacious.

Now a new message appeared on the wall, promising a student would be taken and never seen again.

One thing was sure, the school was in trouble.

"Excuse me, Professor? It is true, the rumour that the school might close? Because of the attacks, I mean?" asked Harry, finally getting worried enough to do something more than just listen to everybody gossip.

He could not understand why so many people put so much effort into whispers and guesses when the truth was often just a question away.

"Unfortunately, yes," answered Professor Sprout, Flowers, with a sad sniff.

"And we would all be sent home, right?" asked Harry, wanting to make completely sure of his facts.

"If the attacks continue, or until we can be sure the school is safe, it would be best for everybody to return to their homes."

"So I'd be stuck back at the Dursley's? Possibly for a long time?"

"As I explained last year, Harry, the headmaster believes it is the safest place for you."

"Right, that's what I thought, thanks," he said with a resigned sigh.

"Where are you going, Harry? Your dorms are back that way."

"Me? I'm off to find Sally's Secret Chamber, of course. I mean, I'm already looking for a quieter place to slee-um, to study, So I might as well search for the Chamber too. I figure either I'll find it and the school won't have to close, or the pet will find me and I'll get to spend a bit of quality time experiencing the existence of a statue.

"Trust me, Professor. When it comes to staying at the Dursleys, I think we'd all be much happier if I did it as an oversized garden ornament."

* * *

"Is there some reason you are brewing up a potion in the abandoned girl's toilet?" Harry asked. "No, stop. On second thoughts, I don't want to know why."

"You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" asked Hermione timidly.

"What? Lord no – then I'd be getting asked all sorts of questions."

"Thank you," she said, obviously relieved.

"So what is it you are brewing?"

"It's called Polyjuice Potion and it's very advanced. When it's done, one sip will turn you into anybody you can get a hair sample from, for one hour."

"Cool," said Harry.

"Unfortunately we still need bicorn horn and the boomslang skin to finish it," she added wistfully. "That's going to be tricky to get, but we have a plan."

"Oh, well, I think I can get some," said Harry. "For a price."

"What? Really? How much?" she asked excitedly, and then frowned.

"And where from?" she added in a suspicious tone.

"I bought all seven years potion supplies," answered Harry, "and it will only cost you an equal share of the completed potion."

There were many people Harry would prefer to be, even if it was only for a little while.

"Deal," said Hermione happily.

Then her insatiable curiosity obviously got her thinking.

"So what were you doing in the girl's–"

"Don't ask," said Harry, cutting her off.

The memory of Moaner offering to help him sleep still sent shivers down his back.

* * *

"So Hagrid, if Hermione's right and it's a Basilisk, does that prove it wasn't you that let the monster out all those years ago?"

"No 'ow did you 'ear about that?" asked Hagrid.

Hagrid was pretty sure he hadn't ever gotten drunk enough in front of a student to tell them that story, but he could never really be certain, not after that time he woke up naked on the shore of the great lake. Thank Merlin that Dumbledore, great man that he is, took pity and didn't fire him, although the way he kept smiling at Hagrid's nakedness was a bit unnerving.

"Ron was telling me about this bunch of huge spiders in the forest you had to rescue him from. He said something about his sister disappearing and he went looking for her and got lost or mislead or something, and you saved him from them because you were their friends but got you expelled in your second year?"

"Oh yeah, that. Strange girl, that Ginny. Always running off and getting into some sort of trouble or another. Found her locked in the broom shed once. Said some'ing had locked her in there. Anyway, Ministry's not likely to want to admit they were wrong on my account, Harry. Bleeding bunch of good for nothing bureaucrats."

"You shouldn't let them get away with it," said Harry, taking another sip from one of the buckets Hagrid called teacups.

"Not much I can do really," said Hagrid.

Harry knew lazy. He knew the kinds of people in bureaucracies like the Muggle school administration, and the kind of lazy they were. It was different to his lazy, and usually pretty stupid.

"Well," he said after taking a moment to think about it. "You start by writing a letter to the place that deals with animal control."

"You mean the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Why would I do that?"

"To license the Basilisk as your pet," said Harry. "When they demand proof of ownership, you won't be able to give them what they want because you can't open the Chamber. They'll deny you, and you can use that to argue with the other department, the one that locked you up, as proof that you had nothing to do with opening the Chamber all those years ago."

"You reckon that'll work?"

"Can't see why not. If anybody asks, you can point them towards the bureaucrats to get their answers. The way those places work, nobody will ever get a straight answer out of them, and Beardy is pretty sure to back you up, right?"

"Great man, Dumbledore," confirmed Hagrid solemnly.

"I'll take your word for it. Anyway, just make sure to go get a new wand, because it's no good trying to fix a broken one – trust me, I've tried a few and none of them worked out well at all."

Hagrid frowned in concentration, the stirrings of hope in his heart as another idea sprung to mind.

"And if they do let me register, I'll be allowed to keep it!" he said excitedly.

Harry managed not to slap a hand to his forehead.

* * *

Harry's searching finally found him the perfect place to take a nap where the constant crowing of roosters would not keep him on the verge of consciousness, but the effort to be there was a bit more than he would normally go for.

He always assumed the Professor's Staff room had the best couches, and he suspected they would have special silencing charms that prevented noise from getting in, but it had taken until Hermione finished brewing some Polyjuice potion to prove, and now he was finally taking advantage of it.

He had just sunk into a deep snooze in one of the luxurious armchairs when the rest of the professors entering the room, which they should not have been doing at this time of the night.

"-the girl, Ginny Weasley," said Professor Mac entering the room. "Ah, Gilderoy. Just the man I wanted to see."

Harry looked around trying to spot the other professor when he suddenly remembered who it was he was Polyjuiced as.

"So sorry - dozed off for a bit- what have I missed?" he asked, hoping to cover up his near-blunder.

He tried hard to pretend not to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred, and then Greasy stepped forward. Harry was sure his cover was blown.

"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."

Harry felt himself blanche, the blood running from his face so fast it left him light headed.

"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I - well, I -"sputtered Harry.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it even before miss Granger's theory came out?" piped up Professor Flitwick.

"D-did I?"

"I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before the roosters were brought in," said Greasy. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"

Harry stared around at the stony-faced professors.

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by all by yourself. A free rein at last."

"V-very well," he said. "I'll - I'll be in my office, getting, er getting ready."

He left the room as fast as he could without sprinting.

His first instinct was to bolt for his dorm, but then he realised Smiley wouldn't be looking for the missing girl unless he was told, so Harry veered off and ran to the defence professor's office instead.

When he got there, it was to discover a scared looking Ron Weasley standing in an otherwise empty office.

"Professor," Ron said, seeing Harry. "You've got to help. It's taken my sister!"

"Ah crap," said Harry. "Ron, it's me, Harry. I am using some of Hermione's Polyjuice. Where's Smiley?"

"Harry? What the hell? Oh crud, he really has gone, hasn't he? I thought so, when I saw his office was empty, but then you came in-"

"Gone? Gone where? Don't tell me he saw the writing on the wall and did 'a runner'? Damn!"

"What are we going to do?" asked Ron. "It's got my baby sister."

Harry swore again, this time using longer, more heart-felt words.

"Listen, you've got to tell the professors that Smiley has nicked off," said Harry. "They're expecting him to go rescue her. Once they know he has gone they'll start looking, but Smiley apparently knew where the entrance is and they don't, so don't waste any time. I've got to go hide and wait for the Polyjuice to wear off or I'll be in it deep."

"Okay," said Ron, rushing out of the room.

Harry pulled his invisibility cloak over his head and headed towards the second floor bathroom where Hermione had hidden to brew the potion. He really should have looked where he was going, but the last thing he expected to stumble into was a dirty great hole where the sinks used to be.

* * *

"Speak to me Slytherin," shouted Tom, and the mouth of the giant statue opened.

"Hey, he kind of looks like Larry now!"Harry giggled to himself, feeling a bit hysterical.

Maybe the bumps on his head from the tumble he took getting down here was affecting him a bit more than he originally thought. His hands were pretty torn up and he was covered in bruises too.

He hadn't even noticed anybody aside from Ron's sister (Scotch? No, that was Smiley's favourite. Margaritas? Tequila? Grog? No, Gin, that was it, Gin) lying on the middle of the chamber when he first staggered in looking for a way out.

Riddle's monologue had almost put Harry to sleep. It was like one of Binn's lectures, but without anybody else around to share the boredom or Larry to take his place in class.

Actually, that gave him an idea.

"Come forth, my pet! Come and obey your master, the true heir of Slytherin," ranted Riddle, working himself up into a nice little frenzy.

The sounds of something enormous moving up the dark tunnel behind the mouth echoed through the chamber, getting louder and louder until a mammoth snake's head pushed its way out of the gaping mouth.

"Kill him," yelled the semi-solid ghost of Voldemort, turning to point at Harry.

Tom barely registered the strange expression and wide open 'O' shaped mouth before the Basilisk dived forward to swallow the mannequin whole.

Spotting the real Harry dragging Ginny towards the chamber door, his invisibility cloak failing to keep them both covered, Tom was about to order the monster to attack again when the great beast suddenly began making a strange barking sound.

"What's going on?" demanded Tom. "What are you doing?"

The coughing grew worse and the huge snake started thrashing from side to side, banging its head on the ground and the walls in an apparent attempt to dislodge Larry from its throat.

"Stop it!" screamed Tom, jumping hurriedly out of the way as the Basilisk's thrashing became more desperate. "Stop that this instant!"

The snake was fairly writhing now, smashing everything in its path as it struggled to breath.

"They're getting away!" yelled Tom, completely ignoring the fact the monster had much bigger problems to deal with. "Kill them!"

Finally, the Basilisk gave an almighty heave, flinging its entire length into the air in an attempt to clear its airway. The massive coils of its body toppled pillars and destroyed the base of Slytherin's ego-sized statue.

The gargantuan bust leaned over, and then snapped completely. It toppled to the ground, landing on top of the choking snake with a crunching crash. Blood and snake guts burst out, spraying the room.

"No!" yelled Tom in anger and disbelief.

Then he spotted a wand, dropped by the fake Potter before it was eaten.

Harry, who had lost his slippery grip on Ginny while trying to keep his footing as the snake died, had a sudden flash of insight and memory. Something Beardy had said to him after trapping Voldemort in a glass jar last year. Something about his blood been poison to the Dark Lord.

Grabbing the diary from Ginny's hands, Harry opened it.

'BITE ME' , he wrote, using his blood as ink and his finger as a quill.

Tom, who was stalking towards them with murder in his eyes, suddenly gave out a huge shriek of pain. With each touch of blood, he screamed and twisted, his once handsome face disintegrating as if flames where eating away at it from the inside.

Realising he didn't need to actually write anything, Harry started using his hand as a stamp, covering page after page with smudgy palm prints, and finger painting random designs with any excess.

Riddle staggered with each mark, as if a physical blow was striking him.

Running low on blood from his damaged fingers, Harry grabbed the book in both hands and pressed his face against it, smearing the trickle of blood, that was leaking from a cut somewhere on his forehead, all over the middle two-page spread.

He made sure to put on a disgusted expression as he did it, just to make it as insulting as possible.

Harry started considering if he should swap to other body fluids – his bladder was quite full, and it would be even more insulting.

Fighting against the pain, Voldemort-the-younger raised the wand he had taken from the mannequin and pointed it at Harry in one final, desperate attempt to stop him.

It was unfortunate he hadn't noticed the wand was of the second hand ones Harry had picked up before the start of the year. It had a long crack running down its length and was barely holding together despite a significant amount of different glues Harry had tried fixing it with.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" screamed Tom.

The resulting green-flamed explosion shook the foundations of the school and brought down a ton of dust and rock from the roof of the cavern.

When the dust cleared, Harry sat up coughing for a few minutes and was very grateful to see Ron's sister, also sitting up and clearing her lungs.

"Meep!" she coughed while ducking down once she noticed he was looking at her.

"Oh good," he said. "You're awake. I really wasn't looking forward to having to carry you all the way back."

She did not look impressed.

* * *

Harry looked at the strange elf, the one that had stolen his mail and delivered the less than useful warning at the beginning of the year - Dobber or something.

It was perched on the end of his hospital bed, apologising profusely about not being able to stop the diary from possessing Ginny, or to stop her from doing all of the horrible things she had unknowingly been involved in, like killing roosters, enchanting the bludger to try to kill Harry, and petrifying people.

"I don't get it," Harry said. "Why don't you just leave? If you hate Malfoy so much, just disappear. He can't stop you, can he?"

Harry noticed people often came up with strange elaborate ways to stop from doing the easy things. It was quite baffling sometimes.

"Oh no, Mister Harry Potter sir," said the elf "Elves are bound-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know that," interrupted Harry, "but you've already managed to do stuff he wouldn't have wanted you to do, so just go that bit further and leave. Pretend he has given you a sock or something and go."

"Pretend?" asked the elf.

"Yeah, pretend. I pretend all the time. I pretend I care, I pretend I am working, hell, I'll even pretend I like you if it will make you go away and stop bugging me.

"Look, go home, find a an old pair of grungies or something that Mal has dropped, pick it up and pretend he gave it to you, which he sort of has done since he obviously left it there for you to find."

It was like a light bulb had gone off behind the elf's eyes - a maniacal, high voltage light bulb.

"Yes, yes! Thank you Harry potter. Dobby will not forget!"

With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Leaving a grumbling Harry Potter determine to get more a decent sleep before the evening meal – a task made infinitely easier now that the roosters were finally gone from the halls.

"He could have at least offered to help me over summer," Harry murmured as he made his way to the land of nod.

* * *

"Potter," called Draco, catching up to Harry after the feast. "I guess you nearly got one of them but missed out at the last second, eh? Can't help bad luck, can you?"

"Eh?" said Harry, not at all close to understanding.

"Never mind, Harry," said Slick, more amicably than anything he had ever said to Harry before. "There's plenty more Weasleys to try for next year. See you in a few months then."

* * *

Eventually all of the petrified were revived, thanks to the Mandrakes grown by the students.

Harry found the shape his unevenly expanded pot forced his to grow into quite amusing, and was actually a bit sad to see the overly busty plant decapitated and stewed. It would have made an awesome addition to Petunia's garden.

"Right," said Harry, preparing himself for the train trip back to London.

"Enchanted stuff to make chores at the Dursley's easier – check.

"Stuff to keep Duderkins away – check.

"Stuff to play with to keep from getting too bored – check.

"Dirty great award thing for saving the school – check."

Hedwig crash-landed on his trunk. Her inactivity and unlimited food supply was taking its toll on the once svelte bird. He might need to get a bigger cage next year, if she kept on at this rate.

"Owl – check.

"Prewritten form letters for pen friends – check.

"Trunk full of prepared food that won't go off – check.

"Enchanted hovering bathmat that hopefully nobody will miss – check.

"What have I forgotten?"

After several minutes of concentration, Harry could come up with nothing more, so he made his way downstairs and headed towards the carriages that would take him to the train station and his 'home'.

"Guess if I've left anything behind I'll get it back next year," he thought, satisfied that he had covered his bases as much as could be expected. "Besides, the elves should be able to bring me anything I need."

He was really looking forward to having the elves around this year, now that he knew they would be hanging around.

_( Deep in the bowels of the castle, a previously secret cavern echoed to the sound of almost a hundred elves suddenly popping into existence inside of it._

_"Oh," they all moaned in ecstasy at the sight of a labyrinth that hadn't been cleaned for a thousand years._

_"Look!" exclaimed one pointing to where the massive statue of Slytherin had fallen, crushing the enormous Basilisk, spreading much filth, gore, and grime everywhere. _

_"Harry Potter told us he left a messes to be cleaned up, but be never said how big its was!"_

_"This will takes us all summer," it panted excitedly "There's will be no need to leave Hoggywarts at all this year!"_

_"Yay!" cheered the rest._

_Further in, hidden by large pieces of the fallen statue, a section of the crushed snake bulged outwards, stretching impossibly far before bursting open to allow a badly damaged artificial hand to emerge._

_)_

**Finite incantatem.**

**_Well there you go – a surprise second year I had no intention of writing. Much thanks to the guys at AFC, especially BennyS for ongoing help and ideas that I shamelessly stole. There is one idea I have for a fourth year scene, but I am not likely to write a third year and a fourth year just to get to it! Then again..._**


End file.
